Wealthy Americans Get Paid Leave, Shouldn’t the Rest?

BY SARAH ANDERSON

For Ruth Martin, the fight for paid leave is both professional and personal.

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

As Senior Vice President of MomsRising, she’s helped mobilize more than 870,000 calls and emails to lawmakers advocating for paid leave and other pro-family benefits in the Build Back Better legislation.

As the daughter of a cancer patient, she’s seen up close how the lack of paid leave benefits ravages families.

“I lost my mom to lung cancer in June,” Martin said at a recent Capitol Hill rally. “Losing a parent is devastating. Losing a parent during a pandemic is worse. And losing a parent without paid leave is absolutely horrendous.”

During her mother’s illness, Martin had paid leave benefits through her employer, but her three siblings who live near her mother’s home did not.

“Lung cancer spreads quickly,” Martin said. “My brother who lived with my mother would still have to go to work because he didn’t have paid leave. And it was so terrifying to have to wonder what was going to happen while he was gone.”

President Biden had proposed 12 weeks of paid leave to allow workers to care for newborn babies, other loved ones, or for personal illness. Then conservative Democrats stripped the benefits entirely from the Build Back Better Act, claiming that the world’s richest country cannot afford a benefit that nearly every other country offers its workforce.

But an outcry from MomsRising, Family Values at Work, and many other advocacy organizations succeeded in shoehorning four weeks of paid leave back into the legislation.

Now even this modest proposal is in jeopardy.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin continues to insist that paid leave be addressed through bipartisan legislation, rather than through the Democrats-only budget reconciliation process. He aims to strip these benefits before the legislation is finalized.

The absence of a national paid leave system is one of many drivers of our country’s skyrocketing inequality. The larger your paycheck, the more likely you are to have these benefits.

Among the highest-earning tenth of private sector workers, 95 percent have some form of paid sick leave, according to federal data. Among the lowest-earning tenth, just 33 percent do. In the highest-wage group, 43 percent have paid family leave, compared to just 6 percent in the bottom group.

The lack of paid leave creates a vicious cycle for families struggling to get by. In the event of pregnancy, illness, or family medical emergency, people who are already earning less than a living wage may have no choice but to drop out of the workforce entirely.

Under the House legislation, a worker whose employer doesn’t provide paid medical or family leave can apply for up to four weeks a year of wage replacement for time off.

Workers making $15,000 or less a year would receive the highest wage replacement rate — 90 percent — but have to have earned at least $2,000 in the two years prior.

The plan cuts off wage replacement for those earning more than $62,000 a year. People with higher incomes can submit requests for paid leave, but their earnings would be replaced only up to that level.

Since every Democrat’s vote will be needed for passage in the Senate, Manchin’s opposition means the paid leave provision faces an uphill battle.

Whatever happens with this round, the fight will continue.

“We need paid leave in this country for the moments that break our hearts and the moments that fill us with joy,” said Martin of MomsRising. “And no one should risk losing their last moments with their parents because they have to clock in and clock out for work.”


Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Forests Can’t Handle All the Net-Zero Emissions Plans: Companies and Countries Expect Nature to Offset Too Much Carbon

BY  DOREEN STABINSKY – KATE DOOLEY

White Salmon Canyon, Washington State. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Net-zero emissions pledges to protect the climate are coming fast and furious from companies, cities and countries. But declaring a net-zero target doesn’t mean they plan to stop their greenhouse gas emissions entirely – far from it. Most of these pledges rely heavily on planting trees or protecting forests or farmland to absorb some of their emissions.

That raises two questions: Can nature handle the expectations? And, more importantly, should it even be expected to?

We have been involved in international climate negotiations and land and forest climate research for years. Research and pledges from companies so far suggest that the answer to these questions is no.

What is net-zero?

Net-zero is the point at which all the carbon dioxide still emitted by human activities, such as running fossil fuel power plants or driving gas-powered vehicles, is balanced by the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since the world does not yet have technologies capable of removing carbon dioxide from air at any climate-relevant scale, that means relying on nature for carbon dioxide removal.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global carbon dioxide emissions will need to reach net-zero by at least midcentury for the world to have even a small chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F), an aim of the Paris climate agreement to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The devil of net-zero, of course, lies in its apparent simplicity.

Nature’s potential and its limits

Climate change is driven largely by cumulative emissions – carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere and stays there for hundreds to thousands of years, trapping heat near Earth’s surface.

Nature has received a great deal of attention for its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the biosphere, such as in soils, grasslands, trees and mangroves, via photosynthesis. It is also a source of carbon dioxide emissions through deforestation, land and ecosystem degradation and agricultural practices. However, the right kinds of changes to land management practices can reduce emissions and improve carbon storage.

Net-zero proposals count on finding ways for these systems to take up more carbon than they already absorb.

Researchers estimate that nature might annually be able to remove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air and avoid another 5 gigatons through stopping emissions from deforestation, agriculture and other sources.

This 10-gigaton figure has regularly been cited as “one-third of the global effort needed to stop climate change,” but that’s misleading. Avoided emissions and removals are not additive.

A new forests and land-use declaration announced at the UN climate conference in November also highlights the ongoing challenges in bringing deforestation emissions to zero, including illegal logging and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Stored carbon doesn’t stay there forever

Reaching the point at which nature can remove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year would take time. And there’s another problem: High levels of removal might last for only a decade or so.

When growing trees and restoring ecosystems, the storage potential develops to a peak over decades. While this continues, it reduces over time as ecosystems become saturated, meaning large-scale carbon dioxide removal by natural ecosystems is a one-off opportunity to restore lost carbon stocks.

Carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere – in forests and other ecosystems – doesn’t stay there forever, either. Trees and plants die, sometimes as a result of climate-related wildfires, droughts and warming, and fields are tilled and release carbon.

When taking these factors into consideration – the delay while nature-based removals scale up, saturation and the one-off and reversible nature of enhanced terrestrial carbon storage – another team of researchers found that restoration of forest and agricultural ecosystems could be expected to remove only about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually.

Over the century, ecosystem restoration might reduce global average temperature by approximately 0.12 C (0.2 F). But the scale of removals the world can expect from ecosystem restoration will not happen in time to reduce the warming that is expected within the next two decades.

Nature in net-zero pledges

Unfortunately there is not a great deal of useful information contained in net-zero pledges about the relative contributions of planned emissions reductions versus dependence on removals. There are, however, some indications of the magnitude of removals that major actors expect to have available for their use.

ActionAid reviewed the oil major Shell’s net-zero strategy and found that it includes offsetting 120 million tons of carbon dioxide per year through planting forests, estimated to require around 29.5 million acres (12 million hectares) of land. That’s roughly 45,000 square miles.

Oxfam reviewed the net-zero pledges for Shell and three other oil and gas producers – BP, TotalEnergies and ENI – and concluded that “their plans alone could require an area of land twice the size of the U.K. If the oil and gas sector as a whole adopted similar net zero targets, it could end up requiring land that is nearly half the size of the United States, or one-third of the world’s farmland.”

These numbers provide insight into how these companies, and perhaps many others, view net-zero.

Research indicates that net-zero strategies that rely on temporary removals to balance permanent emissions will fail. The temporary storage of nature-based removals, limited land availability and the time they take to scale up mean that, while they are a critical part of stabilizing the earth system, they cannot compensate for continued fossil fuel emissions.

This means that getting to net-zero will require rapid and dramatic reductions in emissions. Nature will be called upon to balance out what is left, mostly emissions from agriculture and land, but nature cannot balance out ongoing fossil emissions.

To actually reach net-zero will require reducing emissions close to zero.

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

Doreen Stabinsky is Professor of Global Environmental Politics, College of the Atlantic. Kate Dooley is a Research Fellow, Climate & Energy College, The University of Melbourne.

Enbridge argues Line 5 workaround fits U.S. 

‘Build Back Better’ agenda

STEVEN CHASE

SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 10, 2021
Enbridge’s 1,038-kilometre pipeline is a crucial petroleum conduit for Ontario and Quebec.

DALE G. YOUNG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Canadian operator of the Line 5 pipeline is urging Joe Biden’s administration to embrace its proposal to reroute a controversial Great Lakes crossing deep underground as an example of U.S. “Build Back Better” infrastructure projects.

Calgary-based-Enbridge’s 1,038-kilometre pipeline is a crucial petroleum conduit for Ontario and Quebec that carries Alberta and Saskatchewan petroleum through Great Lakes states before re-entering Canada at Sarnia, Ont.

Its future is unclear after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the pipeline shut down over fears of an oil spill where it crosses the Straits of Mackinac waterway in northern Michigan.

Planning for Canada-U.S. treaty talks on Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline well under way, Ottawa says

Canada and the United States are in negotiations over the matter after Ottawa invoked a 1977 bilateral treaty that was designed to ensure the uninterrupted transmission of petroleum between the two countries.

Enbridge, meanwhile, is still awaiting regulatory approval for a workaround that it says would further insulate the Great Lakes from a potential spill. Right now, Line 5 splits into two pipelines that enter the Straits of Mackinac and run along the seabed from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to the Lower Peninsula where they reunite into one line.

The company is proposing to build a US$500-million tunnel that would run deep under the Straits of Mackinac – as much as 100 feet below – as an alternative to the current route. It would bore through the rock under the waterway in what company advertising says would “virtually eliminate the chance of a pipeline incident in the Straits.”

Colin Gruending, an executive vice-president at Enbridge, argued that the project fits the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” priorities. “The tunnel is a job creator, it protects the environment and it secures the economic security for the entire region. This fits right into the criteria of the current U.S. administration.”

Mr. Biden’s spending agenda, styled as “Building Back Better” after the economic toll taken by the COVID-19 pandemic, includes a massive infrastructure plan, but the energy component is not focused on fossil fuels.

Mr. Gruending said the company finds it surprising that the Michigan government won’t work with Enbridge to move ahead on the tunnel project. “We should be focused on partnering on building the tunnel as reasonably and expeditiously as possible,” Mr. Gruending said.

“The pipeline will continue to be safe until we get the tunnel built but the sooner the state starts working with us to permit and construct the new tunnel the better, and should be everyone’s priority.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last June announced it had opted to conduct a more extensive review of the tunnel project, a decision that could add years to the process.

The Michigan Governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Enbridge’s statements but a spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel on Tuesday rejected the tunnel as a viable solution.

“We remain focused on the continuing threat presented by the existing pipelines in the water,” Lynsey Mukomel said in a statement.

“We cannot afford to wait for a tunnel that will not be built for several years, if at all.”

A University of Michigan computer-modelling study in 2016 concluded that more than 1,120 kilometres in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan would be vulnerable to oil spills if the pipelines beneath the Straits of Mackinac were to rupture.

While Michigan remains intent on shutting down Line 5, the White House on Tuesday said it is not contemplating shutting down Line 5 as it engages in talks with Canada.

“We expect that both the U.S. and Canada will engage constructively in those negotiations,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

She said those discussions should not be viewed as an indicator that the U.S. government was considering shutting down the pipeline.

“That is something that we’re not going to do,” she said.

Environmental critics say the Line 5 tunnel project in no way qualifies as a 21st-century infrastructure project of the kind envisioned by the Biden administration.

“When the world’s leading climate scientists are saying we have to rapidly decarbonize the global economy in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change it makes no sense to spend any time building a tunnel to transport more climate change-inducing fossil fuels,” said Sean McBrearty, the Michigan legislative and policy director with environmental group Clean Water Action.

Mr. McBrearty estimated that as things stand, the tunnel project is now seven to 10 years from completion.

With reports from Reuters

With wealth comes waste: Alberta to target environmental waste with new legislation

By Jessika Guse Global News
Posted November 15, 2021 

Alberta is pushing forward with a plan to reduce the amount of waste that people in the province send to landfills every year. Morgan Black has the details.

With Albertans sending 1,034 kilograms of waste per person to landfills annually — a number higher than any other Canadian jurisdiction, according to Alberta government data — it’s no wonder the province is looking to put a stop to all the waste.

On Monday, the government announced that new legislation will be brought forward, and if passed, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Amendment Act would set the foundation for the provincial government to implement an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework next year.

“We have historically been the wealthiest province in the country, and as a result, with wealth tends to come waste,” said Christina Seidel, executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta.

“We are high consumers because we’ve been wealthy, and as a result, we create a lot of waste.


“We’re the only province that produces more than one tonne per person per year of garbage and that is something that we need to really deal with.”

The national average of waste produced per person is 710 kilograms per year, the province said.


READ MORE: Canada’s recycling industry is on life-support. Here’s how to fix it

Essentially, the EPR framework would create a provincial system for managing single-use plastics, packaging, paper products and hazardous and special products like household pesticides and solvents.

According to a provincial government news release, it would shift the physical and financial role of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste to the industries that produce products instead of local governments and taxpayers.

“Basically if you’re a producer — whoever brings the product into the province — then you have to make sure that a certain percentage of that material gets properly handled, ie. recycled, at the end of its life,” Seidel explained.

The move would also increase recycling as a whole in Alberta, which Seidel says is good news all around. The increase would contribute roughly $1.4 billion to the economy and support about 13,300 jobs, Seidel said.

READ MORE: Calgary councillor pushing to save recycling costs in Alberta

“Right now, and for too long, municipalities and taxpayers have been shouldering the burden of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste,” said Minister of Environment and Parks Jason Nixon

According to a news release, if passed, EPR would help Alberta transition to a plastics circular economy and achieve one of the goals outlined in the Natural Gas Vision and Strategy for Alberta to become a North American centre of excellence for plastics diversion and recycling by 2030.

The public is invited to provide comments and additional input to help inform Alberta’s EPR framework by Dec. 15.

— With files from Morgan Black, Global News

KENNEY SOCK PUPPET FOR BIG OIL
Ottawa must consult provinces on emissions cap for oil, gas industry: Alberta premier

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney warned the federal government on Monday that it must consult with the provinces as Ottawa moves on plans to implement a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The warning came during a rare appearance between Kenney and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Alberta became the latest province to agree to participate in a national child-care program.

The two leaders sought to downplay their long-standing differences during a news conference in Edmonton announcing the child-care deal after Alberta spent months holding out alongside Ontario and New Brunswick, which still don’t have an agreement.

Yet Trudeau and Kenney struck distinctly strident tones when asked by reporters about the prime minister's announcement at the UN climate change talks in Scotland two weeks ago that Canada would start working on the long-promised emissions cap.

IF KENNEY  WAS SERIOUS HE WOULD HAVE GONE TO COP26 

INSTEAD UCP BOYCOTTED IT

After Trudeau promised federal officials would consult industry, experts and scientists as it develops the cap, Kenney took issue with the prime minister’s failure to include provinces in the list of interested stakeholders.

“The provinces own the resource, and under the Constitution, the provinces regulate the development of those resources,” Kenney said in response to a reporter’s question as Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland looked on.

“So I will underscore the importance of collaboration. When it comes to finding a balance between jobs and growth and reducing emissions, I think we can find a suitable approach.”

Trudeau did not specifically respond to Kenney's comments, but did insist all parts of the economy will need to do their part if Canada is to reach its emissions-reduction targets by 2030 while encouraging economic growth in clean energy and other sectors.

In July, Canada formally submitted to the UN its new target, which aims to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The previous target was a 30 per cent reduction by 2030.

“Canada doesn't reach our 2030 targets unless everyone is part of it,” the prime minister said on Monday.

“And we need the innovation, the hard work, the leadership, the science, the knowledge of Albertans and folks in the oil and gas sector across the country to be part of figuring out how we move forward.”

The cap had been promised in the Liberals' recent election platform, with plans to force emissions down until they hit net zero in 2050. A lack of regulations for the sector has long been a sore spot between environmental groups and Ottawa.

Some environmental groups have since said the government should focus on cutting production from the oil and gas sector rather than reducing emissions through long-term targets and unproven technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration.

THE FIRST TWO ARE UNICORNS ONLY LNG IS REAL
Kenney, however, held up carbon capture, hydrogen energy and liquefied natural gas as ways to reduce emissions, adding: “We are willing to be partners as long as there is a future for the largest sector of the Canadian economy. That is our energy sector.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2021.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his promised cap on emissions for Canada's oil and gas sector at the United Nations climate change talks in Scotland last week. The announcement came Nov. 1.

Braid: Kenney's agitated party drags down his good news day

Like many things UCP, the revolt is peculiar

Author of the article:Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date:Nov 15, 2021 •

Premier Jason Kenney announces a $372,000 grant to support two Métis organizations in their fight against Bill C-48, Bill C-48 (Historical) | openparliament.ca in Edmonton Monday Nov. 15, 2021. More than a quarter of United Conservative Party (UCP) constituency associations are now asking for an early leadership review.

 PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM /Postmedia

Monday should have been one of Premier Jason Kenney’s best days in office.

But he started with the familiar anvil around his neck — his own United Conservative Party.

The province signed a child-care deal with Ottawa. This is a monumental agreement, the biggest social policy advance of Kenney’s tenure.

It will be popular among families with young kids. And this premier, riding barely above 20 per cent approval, desperately needs a boost.

The anvil dropped an hour before the daycare announcement in Edmonton, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on hand.

Twenty-two of Kenney’s 87 riding associations went public with their demand for an early leadership review vote.

Riding presidents held a rambling Zoom session with reporters. They claimed to honour the party constitution without quite saying most of them want Kenney out on his ear.

This has been rumbling for many months, often at high volume, with elected UCP members calling for Kenney to quit.

The dissidents have now met the standard of 22 ridings officially demanding a special party meeting to vote on leadership.

Not coincidentally, the UCP annual general meeting starts Friday in Calgary. The central party, so far loyal to Kenney, can’t simply ignore the rebel demand.

Like many things UCP, the revolt is peculiar.

In all the long history of party uprisings against conservative premiers (Don Getty, Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford), there’s never been one that reads like a formal Supreme Court challenge.

Kenney looked almost grey when he took to the podium alongside Trudeau, who surely knew what was going on.

It had to be deeply embarrassing for Kenney to stand beside his chief political foe at a moment like that.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (left) listens while Alberta Premier Jason Kenney answers a questions about climate change policy during a joint federal-provincial announcement of $10-a-day daycare at Boyle Street Plaza in Edmonton, on Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia

Kenney went on the offensive. It didn’t work out well.

The premier said Alberta didn’t sign earlier because it wanted terms like Quebec’s child-care deal, with no strings attached to funding.

Well, said Trudeau, you could have a similar deal if Alberta, like Quebec, already had daycare costing only $8.50 per day.

But Alberta does not, Trudeau said, so there must be standards attached to $3.8 billion in federal money, including an eventual cost of $10 per day.

Kenney argued that it’s not really federal money, just Albertan tax payments coming back home.

Sometimes it’s tough for an Alberta premier to be gracious to Ottawa. The spectacular bottom line is that Ottawa is going to send Alberta that $3.8 billion.

This isn’t really Alberta tax money anyway. It’s borrowed.

These prickly exchanges took some shine off a good-news announcement that could actually win Kenney some popularity.

Ottawa allowed participation of licensed private daycare centres, a large part of Alberta’s capacity. But most new spaces — more than 40,000 over five years — are expected to be not-for-profit.

Kenney presented the support for private care as a win. But the NDP noted that Ottawa has never ruled out the participation of for-profit centres, as long as they’re licensed by the province.

“That was just a stalling tactic used by this government,” said NDP children’s services critic Rakhi Pancholi.

The delays have cost parents money. But starting in January their daycare payments will be reduced by 50 per cent.

Rakhi Pancholi (Alberta NDP Critic for Children’s Services) at It’s All About Kids Daycare in Edmonton on Monday, November 8, 2021. 

PHOTO BY LARRY WONG /Postmedia


Next year, the government says, a family earning $120,000 a year that now pays an average of $1,172 a month for one infant will pay only $284.

This agreement leaves Ontario as the only major province without a deal. Premier Doug Ford will have some explaining to do. When even Alberta sees benefit in a federal deal, shouldn’t he?

Kenney went from the daycare news conference to another with Metis leaders who are challenging the federal ban on tanker oil shipments off the northern West Coast.

He made some good points about the many First Nations that support resource development.

But the party anvil bumped along behind the premier.

With him was his Indigenous Affairs minister, Rick Wilson, and Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Tany Yao.

Both their riding associations called Monday for an early leadership vote. The presidents were at the news conference.

There has to be a resolution soon or this party could blow apart at the seams, just from the stress.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.

UCP constituency associations say they passed vote triggering early Kenney leadership review

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Announcement comes ahead of the United Conservative

 Party's annual general meeting this weekend

CBC News · Posted: Nov 15, 2021 

More than a quarter of the province's United Conservative Party constituency associations say they have passed special motions that would trigger an early leadership review of Jason Kenney, to be held within the next three months. (Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)

More than a quarter of the United Conservative Party's constituency associations say they have passed a special motion that will force a leadership review of Jason Kenney within the next three months.
 
In a letter to party president Ryan Becker that was shared with the media Monday, 22 constituency associations say they have passed identical motions that would call for the leadership review at a special general meeting sometime before March 1. 

A review of Kenney's leadership was already planned for April during the party's 2022 annual general meeting. In September, the party decided to move next year's AGM up to the spring from its usual time in the fall. Monday's announcement of the special motions to force a leadership review sooner than that comes ahead of the 2021 AGM this weekend. 

• Kenney government's approval rating on managing Alberta's health care drops to 20%, poll suggests

• Jason Kenney survives caucus meeting with leadership review to come

At a news conference Monday morning, UCP Calgary-Fish Creek constituency association president Jack Redekop declined to speak about criticism of Kenney's leadership, instead framing the early review as a matter of timing that will ensure input from as many party members as possible.
 
"This would allow one member, one vote," Redekop said, noting that at an annual general meeting, "only those attending are allowed to vote on the motions, including if it is a leadership review." 

"So that is the primary reason."

WATCH | Kenney says UCP remains united despite calls for leadership review: 

Asked about calls by many UCP constituency offices to expedite a leadership review, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says the party is united and is focusing on “big issues, not internal party politics." 1:28

'Frustrations' in party 'no secret,' Kenney says 

Redekop said the early leadership review would also occur before the legislature's spring session and said the party's constitution mandates periodic leadership reviews.
 
"So then the question just defers to the timing," he said. "It is nothing other than that.
 
"I mean, do we have some members displeased with the leader? Of course we do. Do we have some members that are completely supportive of the leader? Yes we do."
 
He said the 22 constituency associations represent 36 per cent of sitting UCP MLAs — more than the quarter needed under the bylaws to trigger the review — but that more constituency associations are currently voting on the motion. Three boards have already rejected it, Redekop said.
 
Kenney is currently facing plunging approval ratings and intense pushback from his caucus and party for his government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Alberta premier denies scapegoating chief medical officer for COVID-19 failures

During questions from reporters at an unrelated news conference Monday, Kenney said he recognizes there has been a "very divisive and polarized debate" in the province, and within his party, on how best to respond to the pandemic. 

"Those frustrations are being felt in my own party and caucus. There is no secret about that," he said.

"At the end of the day, it's my responsibility as premier, and the government's responsibility, to take responsible actions," Kenney said. "We have done that, and I do believe actually that the vast majority of the folks in my party are united around our common values and goals."

In an emailed statement to CBC News, Becker said a letter had been received "regarding a special general meeting. The board [of directors] will review and discuss it."

Motions aim to ensure security of voting system

The letter to Becker says that according to motions the associations have passed, the leadership election committee will include two constituency presidents appointed by the associations, as well as an independent accounting and auditing firm that will oversee the process to "ensure the security of the voting system."

"We know that the media in the past has suggested that there was some inappropriate malfeasance with previous campaigns," Redekop said, adding that has never been proven "and there is no evidence that that has happened."

Delegates vote on policies at the 2019 Alberta United Conservative Party Annual General Meeting in Calgary. According to one of the party's constituency association presidents, the upcoming early leadership review is a matter of timing that will ensure input from as many party members as possible. (Dave Chidley/The Canadian Press)

"We just wanted to make sure that we quelled any possibility of that rumour spreading with this particular vote."

During the party's 2017 leadership vote, two of the three candidates — Brian Jean and Doug Schweitzer — asked that voting be put on hold hours after members began casting their ballots because of concerns about voter security related to personal identification numbers.

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The party's leadership election committee said it found no evidence of security breaches.

Redekop said Becker has told the constituency associations that he has acknowledged the legitimacy of the boards' passed motion.

Kenney 'under seige' 

The president of the Central Peace-Notley constituency association, Samantha Steinke, was more blunt than Redekop about her board's views of Kenney's leadership. 

"I feel I would be doing not my job if I wasn't very clear on the stance of my (constituency association) board, which is they overwhelmingly do not support the premier," Steinke said.

She said that's the reason her board has passed the motion, but noted it wasn't the reason all the other boards had passed it. 

Derrick Casey, president of the Grande Prairie constituency association, said his board passed the motion "marginally" but said "certainly there is a discontented group" within the party that disapproves of Kenney's leadership. 

"It is not one issue and certainly, to have success in this motion speaks to the fact that there is a level of urgency." 

Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said Kenney is "under siege" from both outside and within his party.

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"He has got the lowest polling numbers of any leader in the country," she said. "He is facing censure from the opposition. He is getting public criticism from his own caucus and from within his cabinet.

"And he has now got 22 constituency associations that want to force a leadership review before March." 

Williams said the constituency associations that passed the motion want to send a clear message to the party that they think they can be more successful in the next provincial election with a leader other than Kenney.

Questioning Kenney? UCP associations

 confirm threshold met to warrant

 leadership review

Tyson Fedor
CTV News Calgary Video Journalist
Updated Nov. 15, 2021

CALGARY -

The United Conservative Party Constituency Association Presidents confirm a special motion has been passed by enough associations to pave the way for a review of Premier Jason Kenney's leadership.

At least 22 associations, accounting for more than a quarter of the UCP associations, passed a special motion demanding a leadership review be held within the next three months at a special general meeting.

“This would allow one member, one vote,” said Calgary-Fishcreek Constituency Association president Jack Redekop on Monday.

“With a AGM (annual general meeting) April 8th and 9th, just like the AGM that we have starting this weekend, only those attending are allowed to vote on the motion, including if it's a leadership review.”

Redekop says there have been nine meetings in the last eight months on calls for a leadership review. Many associations have brought forward concerns on everything from how the province handled the pandemic to pipelines and health care problems.

“We've had up to 37 constituencies on the call. Were some of those constituencies absolutely wanting to change the leader? To force a leadership review immediately, and even at this AGM? Absolutely," said Redekop.

“Frankly, I think the majority of the people on those meetings supported the leader.”

Premier Jason Kenney admits there is unrest within party lines.

“Those frustrations are being felt in my own party, in caucus. There's no secret about that,” he told reporters Monday.

“I do believe actually the vast majority of folks in my party are united around our common values and goals.”

According to the association presidents, the passing of the special motion by the 22 associations meets the threshold to trigger a special general meeting to conduct a leadership review as per the party's conditions endorsed by the board.

The presidents say that a motion will be on the floor Friday, on day one of the party’s 2021 AGM in Calgary. The motion would increase the threshold from 25 per cent of constituency associations (CA) calling for a review to 33 per cent. This vote has support of 36 per cent of associations, according to Redekop.

Though Redekop fronted a media conference on Monday, he did not pinpoint the exact reason why this review needed to be called early.

Samantha Steinke, president of the association in Central Peace-Notley region, said she does not trust Kenney to lead.

"I feel I would be doing not my job if I wasn't very clear on the stance of my CA board, which is that they overwhelmingly do not support the premier,” said Steinke.

"So that is the reason that this board has passed. But that is not the reason that all boards have passed the motion."

Party members also say that any motion brought forward at the 2021 AGM can only be brought forward by Kenney himself.

“It’s clear that premier Kenney is in a fight for his political life,” said University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young.

“I think there is a lot of discontent in the party at what is seen as being a real repudiation of that grassroots guarantee.”

Young believes the move by constituency associations sends a strong message.

“I think that it also has to do with wanting to be sure that there is a reasonably long runway for a new leader in advance of the 2023 provincial election,” she said.

Derrick Casey, constituency association president for Grande Prairie, says the timing of an early leadership review is what triggered the votes, but it didn’t sway all associations.

“Even those people who are displeased with the work of the premier are saying, ‘if we have a leadership review, who is in the wings, what then?’” said Casey.

“Those people are saying no to a leadership review, regardless of timing.”

The following are the four constituency associations who have passed the motion:
Airdrie-Cochrane
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake
Calgary-North East
Calgary-Klein

BIG OIL CAPITOL OF CANADA
Calgary city council declares a climate emergency

Author of the article: Madeline Smith
Publishing date: Nov 15, 2021 • 

Mayor Jyoti Gondek speaks with the media after breakfast with energy industry leaders on Monday, November 15, 2021.

Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia


After nearly two hours of debate Monday night, city council overwhelmingly agreed to declare a climate emergency.

The 13-2 vote comes two years after Edmonton made its own emergency declaration, and it was one of Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s first moves after being elected last month.

In addition to the emergency declaration, the motion calls the City of Calgary environmental plan to be updated to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Gondek said the move is about aligning the city government with the position Calgary oil and gas companies are already taking.

“It is a matter of making sure that we understand the reality of the table stakes that are declaring a climate emergency, so we can actually attract capital and talent here,” she said.

Coun. Sean Chu and Coun. Dan McLean, the two votes in opposition, said they were concerned about council sending a negative message to Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

“Fossil fuels have, if anything, made human life on this planet better, not worse. They have blessed humans with the capability of living successfully in a harsh natural climate like ours,” Chu said.

“Declaring a climate emergency should not take priority over the economic emergency and jobs emergency in Calgary.”

Coun. Jasmine Mian said she rejects the idea that the motion represents an “attack” on the oil and gas sector.

“When facing a collective action problem like climate change, the greatest threat is thinking that everyone else will take care of it,” she said.

Coun. Sonya Sharp wanted council to change the wording of the declaration from “climate emergency” to a “call to action” to accelerate the environmental work the city is already doing.

But she could only get a handful of council colleagues on her side, with others saying they feared changing that language could water down its intent. Numerous cities around the world have declared a climate emergency, and city officials said if Calgary didn’t use the same language, it wouldn’t be on that same level.

Ahead of the council discussion, energy company representatives and business leaders met with city council members, and Gondek said it represents how the municipal government is forging a new relationship with the energy sector.

“There are so many accomplishments in the energy transition that we just haven’t been talking about. The narrative has to get out there that our city and our energy sector is doing good work — they have set some very, very high targets for bringing emissions under control.”

Calgary Chamber president and CEO Deborah Yedlin said Monday that the business community’s reaction to the proposed motion varies depending who you ask, and some have been concerned about the possible message behind it.

But she doesn’t believe there should be cause for concern, saying Calgary has an opportunity to become “the Silicon Valley for energy transition technologies.”

“When we have this kind of pronouncement by the city, it puts us on the map. It takes away some regulatory uncertainty, it takes away that perspective that we’re not committed and that people will look at us again in a different light,” she said.

“And that’s what’s really exciting because there is a lot of money on the sidelines looking to invest in the energy transformation, and we are so well-positioned to do that.”

Explorers and Producers Association of Canada president Tristan Goodman added that energy companies have already gotten on board with commitments to pursue net-zero emissions by 2050 and combat climate change.

“We know we have an emissions problem, and we have to show to Canadians, but also actually our own investors, that we treat this seriously — which we do,” he said.

Avatar Innovations CEO and co-founder Kevin Krausert said there hasn’t historically been ties as strong as he’d like to see between municipal leaders and the energy sector, and Monday’s meeting helps create new connections.

“I think Calgary stands at an important crossroads,” he said.

“The energy transition is the single greatest economic opportunity facing Calgary. We’re literally talking about rewiring and repowering the world.”

masmith@postmedia.com

Gondek hosting breakfast with energy industry leaders ahead of decision on climate emergency declaration

Author of the article:Stephanie Babych
Publishing date:Nov 15, 2021 • 

Mayor Jyoti Gondek speaks at an orientation outlining the 2022 Adjustments to the One Calgary Service Plans and Budgets report at Calgary Municipal Building on Monday, November 8, 2021. 

PHOTO BY AZIN GHAFFARI/POSTMEDIA

Calgary’s mayor and councillors will be joined by a number of energy industry leaders for breakfast Monday morning, ahead of city council’s decision on a motion to declare a climate emergency.

Leaders from the energy sector will meet with Mayor Jyoti Gondek and councillors early Monday to discuss the industry and the notice of motion to declare a climate emergency that would also update Calgary’s environmental plan to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050.

The energy companies that will be represented at the Mayor’s Energy Breakfast include Suncor, Shell, Enbridge and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance.

“I want us to have a candid, open discussion to move forward on this journey so that by 2050 we reach our targets,” Coun. Raj Dhaliwal said Sunday.

“I’m very optimistic and hopeful that we’ll have a very good discussion. I worked in the energy sector for more than 10 years, I’ve seen it first-hand and been a witness to the great work that our energy sector has already been doing through innovation and technology.”

Also present at the meeting will be TC Energy, Imperial, Avatar Innovations, White Cap Resources, Young Pipeliners Association of Canada, The Explorers and Producers of Canada, Energy Futures Lab, and Ecosystems at Sustainable Tech Canada.

City council’s executive committee unanimously agreed last week to discuss a motion to endorse a declaration of climate emergency at Monday’s council meeting, where a final decision is expected.

The motion also asks for the city’s environmental plan to be updated to include the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, which is a worldwide target to stop adding heat-trapping carbon emissions to the atmosphere and limit global warming to 1.5 C.

“My biggest hope this week is that we get on that journey to net-zero,” said Dhaliwal, adding that he hopes to see unanimous agreement from his fellow councillors.

The Ward 5 councillor said it’s long overdue for Calgary to make such a statement.

A number of other Canadian cities have declared climate emergencies, including Edmonton in 2019. Corporations including Shell, Cenovus, Repsol and Teck have also previously committed to net-zero emissions targets by 2050.

The discussions and decisions that will be made Monday show that Calgary council is committed to focusing on its climate targets and that they recognize the significance of it, Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian said Sunday.

“I think declaring a climate emergency is a really important step for us at this juncture. I think it shows we have a strong commitment to addressing climate change,” said Mian.

“I think the conversations we’re having around reaching net-zero by 2050 are going to require us to reframe how we make decisions and think about climate not so much as a policy that sits on the shelf with all the other policies, but is a consideration that underscores everything we do.”

Mian said the breakfast meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn more about what’s being done and what can be done to meet the city’s climate targets.

sbabych@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BabychStephanie

Inflation, pensions, inequality among Chile’s economic challenges

Online News EditorNovember 15, 2021

 

Santiago, Nov 15 (EFE).- Skyrocketing inflation, an uncapitalized pension system and inequality that has been exacerbated during the pandemic are all challenges that Chile’s next president will face in a country that has stopped being the “oasis” it was before October 2019, when the most serious protests since the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship erupted.

The seven candidates vying for the presidency in the Nov. 21 elections represent a very broad political spectrum ranging from the extreme right that seeks to minimize the role of the state and cut taxes to the extreme left, seeking to expropriate mining, and including more moderate positions that seek to create a society with greater well-being for all.

Voter surveys, which have lost significant clout and prestige since the latest elections, forecast that no candidate will win the first electoral round outright and that the two biggest vote-getters who will face off in the Dec. 19 runoff in all likelihood will be leftist Gabriel Boric, with the Broad Front, and Jose Antonio Kast, with the ultrarightist Republican Party.

The experts, however, are saying not to be so quick to rule out centrist candidate Yasna Provoste or Sebastian Sichel, with the governing right, since these are the most uncertain elections Chile has held since democracy was reestablished in 1990 and 50 percent of the voters say they are still undecided on whom they will support.

“It will be a very difficult 2022, with annual growth projected at barely 2 percent and amid a context of reduction of fiscal transfers and the withdrawal of monetary stimulus, which implies higher interest rates,” Francisco Castañeda, the director of the Business School at the Universidad Mayor, told EFE.

Simultaneously, a convention made up mainly of progressive citizens is working at full speed to draft a new Constitution before next July, a document that will preserve the solidarity of the state and replace the prevailing one, which was inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship and is of a neoliberal bent.

Alejandro Micco, an economist with the Universidad de Chile and former undersecretary of finance, told EFE that the big challenge is “maintaining certainty regarding the future of the country’s economic policy” so that Chile’s “country risk (status) or taxes” are not adversely affected.

Along the same lines, the president of Chile’s big business organization, Juan Sutil, said that “Investors pause their decision-making until they have some certainty. And this is just what we’ve been seeing in recent months.”

The coronavirus pandemic caused a 5.8 percent plunge in Chile’s GDP in 2020, the worst drop in four decades, and the loss of almost two million jobs.

The recovery, however, is happening more quickly than expected. In the second quarter of this year, the GDP grew by an annualized 18.1 percent, the biggest jump since records have been kept, and the unemployment rate dropped in September to 8.4 percent.

The Central Bank of Chile expects growth for 2021 to come in at between 10.5 percent and 11.5 percent, and for 2022 it should be 2.5 percent.

Recaredo Galvez, with the progressive think-tank Fundacion Sol, said that “You have to push a reactivation that won’t be unstable, that’s the big challenge for the government and for Parliament,” with voters also selecting all the national congressman and one half of the senators the upcoming elections.

Copper, for which Chile is the world’s biggest producer, to a great extent has been pushing the recovery and will continue to do so, although one must be “attentive” to the slowdown in the Chinese economy, Galvez warned.

The red metal on May 10, 2021, reached its maximum price of $4.86 per pound, exceeding even the levels seen during the “supercycle” of 2011, and the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco) estimates that it will close out the year at an average of $4.20 per pound.

Well-known economist Ricardo Ffrench Davis, the winner of the National Humanities and Social Sciences Award, told EFE that Chile must eliminate the endemic inequality that fostered the 2019 wave of protests, since only by doing so will there be “certainty and social peace.”

Regarding inequality, he said, “we’ve backslid during these past two years, with obstacles like having lost almost $50 billion in prior savings.”

“Money has gotten more liberalized: The critics of neoliberalism are doing neoliberalism when they say they want to manage their money themselves,” said Ffrench Davis, who proposed increasing taxes in 2022 and levying a one-time tax on people who earned more during the crisis.

Chile, a pioneer in Latin America in individual capitalization, has allowed three early withdrawals of 10 percent of retirement funds, paying more out than $48 billion.

The majority of the presidential candidates agree that the system provides very low retirement pensions and needs overhauling.

Inflation, the experts agree, could be one of the main headaches for the next president

Art murals tell the story of Puerto Rico’s independence

Online News EditorNovember 14, 2021

 

By Jorge J. Muñiz Ortiz

Lares, Puerto Rico, Nov 14 (EFE).- From Ramon Emeterio Betances to Rafael Cancel Miranda, prominent figures in Puerto Rico’s independence movement have become protagonists of several murals to reflect the country’s history.

The place chosen to have the faces of those figures on display is the town of Lares, where the first uprising against the Spanish colonial rule in 1868 has taken place in the country that is a commonwealth of the United States.

As part of El Grito del Arte Festival, the murals document the Puerto Rican independence struggle starting from that historic uprising until more recent events such as the 1954 shooting attack on the US capitol.

The face of Betances, one of the main revolutionaries in 1868, was painted together with the flag of the Grito de Lares movement by the Stencil Network, while the black and white mural of Pedro Albizu Campos, an emblematic figure of Puerto Rican nationalism and independence from the first half of the 20th century, was a courtesy of GoFive.

In addition, the portrait of Cancel Miranda also stands out in Lares, who was one of the four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on the US House of Representatives, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison afterwards.

Don Remix, one of the famous Puerto Rican muralists, painted a colorful graffiti of Cancel Miranda with aerosol cans.

“He is a very important figure who fought with his life for the rights of us Puerto Ricans. It is an honor to also pay tribute to him,” Don Remix tells Efe shortly before getting back on a crane to finish his mural.

“It is an interpretation of his figure and his relationship with the community,” he says, referring to his work.

Puerto Rican artist Dennise Zoé González Crespo, known as Usuaria 210, created a historical chronology of the Grito de Lares since the uprising of 1868 on the island.

The Scream through Time seeks to highlight facts of the independence revolt and the groups that emerged later such as the Nationalist Party, the Boricua-Macheteros Popular Army and the Armed Forces of National Liberation.

All those artists perceive Lares, a mountainous municipality in the western area of ??Puerto Rico, as the birthplace of the 1868 uprising.

“It is a place that has a lot of history and that we must reflect on. We are here trying to bring something in line with the activity at a historical level. Our goal is that our history is passed from generation to generation,” Don Remix adds.

For Usuaria 210, a supporter of the independence movement, says “in the history of Puerto Rico, both past and present, Lares is a super important link.”

“Lares represents the feeling of a part of Puerto Rico that fights for rights inside and outside. Lares is the base of all those groups that were formed,” she highlights.

Other artists or groups that created pieces at the El Grito del Arte urban art festival, held this weekend, were the Morivivi Collective, Ana Maria, Sergio Vazquez, Andres Cortes, Javier Olmed and Luis Alejandro Rodriguez. EFE

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