Young woman who survived Brussels terror attack 'euthanised' after suffering severe PTSD

Tom Sanders - Metro

A young woman who survived the 2016 terror attack in Brussels airport has died after choosing to be euthanised due to suffering extreme depression and PTSD following the incident.


A young woman who survived 2016 Brussels airport ISIS bomb but could not live with the trauma has been ‘euthanised’ in Belgium (Picture: Twitter / Youtube / Wikipedia )© 

Six years ago, Shanti De Corte, 23, was walking through the departures lounge at the Belgian airport with some classmates ahead of a school trip to Italy when Islamic State militants detonated a bomb that killed 32 and injured 300.

Despite escaping the blast and leaving the scene physically unharmed, the psychological effects of the attack sent her spiralling into a deep depression and left her suffering from intense panic attacks from which she never managed to recover from.

Shanti later attended a psychiatric hospital in her hometown of Antwerp and took a range of antidepressant medications, but was unable to make a full recovery and attempted suicide on two seperate occasions in 2018 and 2020.

Earlier this year, the young woman chose to be euthanised- a procedure which is legal in Belgium- and passed away on May 7, after her request was approved by two psychiatrists.

Speaking to Belgian outlet VRT this week, Shanti’s mother Marielle shared her daughter’s pain and described the heartbreaking ordeal which left her unable to function.

‘That day really cracked her,’ her mother said. ‘She never felt safe after that.


Shanti survived the blast with no physical wounds but 

suffered severe mental trauma and PTSD as a result of the incident

 (Picture: Twitter)


The airport attack killed 32 people and injured over 300 more. Shanti, then just 17 years old, was about to embark on a school trip to Rome at the time of the blast

 (Picture: YouTube)

‘In the summer of 2016 we went on a trip to France, but Shanti didn’t come out of the hotel. She didn’t want to go anywhere where other people were, out of fear. She also had frequent panic attacks and she never got rid of it.’

Elsewhere in the interview, Marielle said her daughter ‘always hoped for a livable life’, but it was a battle she just could not win.

‘She was so limited by her fear that she couldn’t do what she wanted to do. She lived in constant fear and completely lost her sense of security. When Shanti came out, she was always alert. Am I in no danger? Could something happen? She never rested outside.’

Shanti herself was candid about the mental toll the attack had taken on her psyche, and frequently shared updates on social media about her deteriorating condition.

In one post she wrote: ‘I get a few medications for breakfast. And up to 11 antidepressants a day. I couldn’t live without it.

‘With all the medications I take, I feel like a ghost that can’t feel anything anymore. Maybe there were other solutions than medications.’

According to Shanti’s school psychologist, the young woman had suffered from depression prior to the attack, the Mail reports.

‘There are some students who react worse than others to traumatic events. And having interviewed her twice, I can tell you that Shanti De Corte was one of those fragile students.’

As she recovered in hospital following an attempt to kill herself, Shanti seriously discussed the possibility of ending her own life, after which she reached out to an organisation that defends the right to ‘death in dignity’.

She later requested the organisation assist her in her euthanasia attempt on grounds of ‘unbearable psychiatric suffering’


Shanti De Corte- Seen here posing with friends- struggled to recover from the trauma of the ordeal and eventually reached out to a euthanasia organisation to ease her suffering (Picture: Twitter)


After making peace with her situation, Shanti posted a touching goodbye on social media before she died surrounded by friends and family in May 2022 (Picture: FaceBook)

Euthanasia, defined as the practice of intentionally ending a person’s life to relieve pain and suffering, is legal in Belgium for an individual who is in ‘a medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident’.

Her request was formally approved by two psychiatrists earlier this year, and Shanti was eventually euthanised surrounded by her friends and family on May 7, 2022.

In the end, Shanti was able to make the journey to Rome that was taken from her in 2016, travelling there with her family last year as a kind of final request.

‘Shanti still wanted to see Rome with us. That was really important to her. She enjoyed it very much herself, but it was also very intensive for her,’ her mother said.

‘We are grateful for the extra time we got. Despite her struggle, we were able to do a lot together and we were able to say goodbye.’

In one touching final gesture, Shanti made one final post on social media the day she was euthanised. Taking to social media, she wrote: ‘I was laughing and crying. Until the last day. I loved and was allowed to feel what true love is.

‘Now I will go away in peace. Know that I miss you already.’

Charlottetown residents protest record rent hike as they deal with Fiona hardships

Arturo Chang - 7h ago - CBC

About a hundred Charlottetown residents gathered in the city's downtown Saturday to protest rent hikes coming into effect in the new year.

The Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission announced late last month it was setting a maximum allowable rent increase of 5.2 per cent for unheated rental units or those heated with sources other than furnace oil.

For heated rentals, the increase will be 10.8 per cent.

That's the highest allowable rent increase on record for P.E.I.

The rent hike was announced shortly before post-tropical storm Fiona hit P.E.I. two weeks ago.

Housing advocates told CBC News the storm is just one more hardship for people already dealing with cost of living issues.


Connor Kelly of P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing said he's hearing from people who got a notice the rent was going up just days after Fiona hit.

 © Tony Davis/CBC

"This really shows IRAC just seems incredibly out of touch to most people," said Connor Kelly of P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing, which helped organize the event.

"People are barely getting by as it is. So to be hit with this, the increase, and then the hurricane and it seems like the people are just constantly getting blasted with hardship after hardship."

Kelly said he's hearing from people who got a notice that the rent was going up just days after Fiona hit.

Parker Snow, who spoke at the rally, said everyone in his building received a notice while his landlord was still fixing the roof and doing cleanup after the storm.

"I'm going to be able to afford it, but ... it's almost like tightening the noose at this point," he said.

"In my building there [are] a lot of seniors who are on, like, fixed incomes and stuff like that, or pension. And it's gonna be really rough on them, too."

Robin Graham was displaced from her apartment because of water damage due to Fiona. Graham said she hasn't looked into a new rental yet, partly because she isn't "emotionally prepared" to see rent prices.

"I've kind of accepted that I'll never rent again," Graham said.

"People are right on the brink of being unhoused. You know, it's one missed paycheque, it's one car repair that you can't afford, it's one incident where you don't have tenant insurance away from not having anything anymore."

Graham said about half of her income went to rent before she was displaced.

The announced rent increase comes as Charlottetown continues to look for solutions for the growing homeless population living in tent encampments in the city.

Kelly said the more people are priced out, the more likely they end up on the street.

"Nobody wants to support people if they don't have the money to afford shelter," he said. "It is as if at a certain income level you can just stop becoming a person to the government."


Housing Minister Matthew MacKay committed to looking at ways to reverse IRAC's decision shortly after it was announced.

© Tony Davis/CBC

The province said last month it was bringing about 50 mobile units from Western Canada as a temporary fix during the winter.

Housing Minister Matthew MacKay also committed to looking into ways to reverse IRAC's decision shortly after it was announced, saying it's "not the time" to introduce a rent hike due to record-high inflation and the housing crisis affecting the province.

Meanwhile, Green MLA Hannah Bell has been urging tenants to appeal any rental increase even if it is within the allowed limit. Bell said people have a right to appeal increases if it is outside their budget.

The Residential Rental Association of P.E.I. has previously told CBC News the increases are necessary because of inflation.

CANADA

Long-term renters evicted during housing boom face homelessness

The Conversation - 9h ago

Andy would rather remain as anonymous as possible because, “it’s kind of embarrassing people knowing how little you have.” He has been living in his home for 21 years. It is a postwar house in the Greater Hamilton, Ont. area with a covered front porch, postage stamp lawn and plaster that has begun to crack. His cat, who “isn’t as friendly as she looks,” likes to sleep in his TV chair in the front room. Andy is single and on a fixed income. And his landlord is selling the house.


Elderly long-term renters are facing the very real risk of homelessness as skyrocketing rents encourage landlords to sell. (Shutterstock)© Provided by National Post

I spoke to Andy when I went to view the property with my husband. We recently qualified for a small mortgage and are looking for a fixer-upper. I’m a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph studying non-profit housing advocacy and he is an architectural technologist.

That’s how I ended up meeting the elderly gentleman with the neatly combed white hair. Andy is only one example of an under-discussed but very real problem within Canada’s housing crisis.

As property values hit historic highs in cities across Canada, long-term renters find themselves in an increasingly precarious position.


Rising rents mean many elderly tenants cannot afford to continue living in their homes. (Shutterstock)© Provided by National Post
Skyrocketing rents

As real estate prices rise, the temptation for landlords to sell is high. Even the market correction we are currently experiencing pales in comparison with the rise over the last few years. The average price of a home in Canada this August (heavily influenced by the Toronto and Vancouver markets) was $637,673 . That is down 3.9 per cent from the same month last year, but still much higher than the average of $504,409 five years ago.

The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Hamilton, the closest city to where Andy lives, is $1,362 . Twenty-one years ago, it was $740 . Because Andy has been in his apartment for so long, he pays $525 in rent. That is around 25 per cent of his income, which is below $2000 a month.

Renters in Ontario are grandfathered in at their original rent, plus the yearly legally allowed increase, which since 2000, has ranged from 1.5 to 2.9 per cent of the rent. However, landlords can still raise rent at their discretion between tenants — a result of Mike Harris’ government scrapping vacancy rent control in 1997 , the same year the federal government disinvested from social housing. Vacancy rent control is when there are limits on how much a landlord can raise rents in between tenants and when a property changes hands.

Real risks of homelessness

But selling property out from under long-time renters, some of them elderly and on fixed incomes, can have devastating consequences. Waitlists for rent-geared-to-income housing in Ontario are long — in Toronto, a staggering 80,532 people are on the active waitlist .

Waitlists for subsidized housing can be up to 10 years long . Andy says that where he lives, “I’m on a list to be on the list — a year, maybe?” So a person cannot be guaranteed a rent-geared-to-income placement before they are expected to vacate their home. There are also the more intangible things that make a home one’s own.



Landlords selling property out from under long-term renters, 

some of them elderly and on fixed incomes, can have devastating consequences. 

(Shutterstock)© Provided by National Post

Andy owns his own kitchen appliances and likes to cook. “If they stuff me in a little apartment, I’ll have to give up my dream stove. I call it my dream stove cause it has gas and a grill and everything… It’s the little things, you know, that bother you the most.”

The government should not assume that family and friends can pick up the slack of a flagging social housing system. If their landlord decides to sell and they’re a single, long-term renter from a working-class family, whose friends are also working class, everyone they know might be in a similar situation. If the house sells and people are not at the top of the rent-geared-to-income waitlist, a person could face homelessness.

What is to be done?

My first suggestion would be to modify the affordability standards in the Rental Construction Financing Initiative , which forms a large part of the National Housing Strategy investment. Currently, a large portion of these funds go to for-profit developers who promise to abide by the NHS’s affordability standards .

However, the standards define affordability as up to 30 per cent of the median income of all families in the area (including homeowners and wealthy families). In some areas, by the NHS’s standard, affordability can be counted as high as $1500 a month . Furthermore, units must be kept at this “affordable” level for only 10 years.

Affordability should be calculated in a way that focuses on the median of lower-income households only. If funds allocated to build affordable housing are based on that metric, it might help build up a more affordable stock.

Robust investment in permanent housing that is affordable for lower-income households would help curb the immediate crisis affecting Andy and so many others. This would go a long way towards stabilizing the rental market so that if people need to change residences, they won’t be left out in the cold.

Edith Wilson, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Guelph

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

CANADA

Afghan community rallies to protest violence against ethnic minority

Safiyah Marhnouj - cbc.ca- TODAY

Carrying signs saying 'Stop Hazara Genocide' and 'Let us live,' more than a hundred protesters gathered on Parliament Hill Saturday to demand action after several attacks on the ethnic Hazara minority group in Afghanistan.

The protest was organized after a recent suicide bombing at a Shia educational centre in a Hazara neighbourhood in the capital city of Kabul on Sept. 30.

The United Nations said at least 100 people were wounded and more than 50 people, mostly teenage girls, were killed.

The Hazara people are an ethnic minority group in Afghanistan who are predominantly Shia Muslims. They have been a frequent target of violence in the region.

"We want to raise our voice to make people aware that a crime is going on in Afghanistan," said Ahmad Seyar Lalee, one of the organizers of Saturday's protest.

Lalee said similar protests are also taking place in the United States, the United Kingdom and across Canada in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary.

The protests are also a way to urge officials with the Canadian government to recognize a "Hazara genocide," Lalee said, and take preventative steps.

"We are asking them, as Afghan-Canadian citizens, to stand with us and stand for justice in Afghanistan and support us," he said.

"We have to stand for equality, for human rights, for women's rights and child's rights," he said.



Ahmad Seyar Lalee, left, attended the protest with his wife. He said he hopes the protest opens people's eyes to the violence Hazara people face in Afghanistan.

© Safiyah Marhnouj/CBC

'It's unacceptable'

Goli Akbari, a member of the Hazara community, said she was heartbroken to hear of the suicide bombing.

"It's so hard as a mother to see somebody's young kids go to school and get killed. It's unacceptable," she said.

Akbari said she's proud to be both Afghan-Canadian and Hazara. By attending the protest, she hoped to spread awareness about the situation in Afghanistan and what her community is fighting for.

"Please stop this," she urged. "Stop killing our future generation."

Azada Azad, a member of the University of Ottawa's Afghan Students Association, also spoke at the demonstration.

"There isn't anything we can do other than speak up, other than try," she told CBC.


Azada Azad, centre, stands with members of the University of Ottawa's Afghan Students Association. Azad said it's important to use her voice and speak out as so many women in Afghanistan cannot.© Safiyah Marhnouj/CBC

Azad grew up in Afghanistan and, as a member of the Hazara community, said she's familiar with the type of discrimination her people can face.

Supporting protests like these are more important than ever, she said, especially since many people in Afghanistan, namely women, are unable to speak out at all.

"It's important for the Afghans in general who are outside of the country to speak up for these women and to make the rest of the world understand the pain they're going through," she said.

"It might feel like it is pointless at the time, but when you are constantly trying to speak up, somewhere along the line someone will listen."

Nika Shahkarami: How a slain 16-year-old became a figurehead of the Iran protests

Kathryn Mannie - Thursday

Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old girl whose death has become a focal point in the Iran protests.

Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old girl who died after going missing for 10 days after participating in protests in Tehran, has become a new focal point of the growing anti-government protest movement in Iran.

 News of her death, and the treatment of her family at the hands of Iranian authorities, sparked outrage and galvanized fresh protests as demonstrations stretch into their third week.

© Twitter

VIDEO Renewed outrage after Amnesty Intl. says 16-year-old protester beaten to death

The Iran protests initially erupted after the funeral of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iran's morality police for allegedly violating the country's modesty laws. At first, demonstrations centred around protesting Iran's strict dress code that dictates how women can dress, but have since expanded into broader calls for a regime change.

Read more:

Trudeau vows to punish ‘bloodthirsty regime’ in Iran amid Mahsa Amini death

Iranian security forces have used tear gas and opened fire on protesters to quash dissent, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured — though the true number of casualties has been disputed. Iranian women and girls have been leading the protests, with numerous videos circulating on social media showing people burning their hijabs and cutting their hair in defiance of the country's strict modesty laws.

Shahkarami's death, which many activists in Iran believe happened at the hands of Iranian authorities, has become another rallying cry in the protest movement. Protesters see her death as emblematic of the way Iran's government treats women in the country.

"Nika’s death will definitely fuel the fire of anger," a female protester in Tehran said over the Telegram messaging app, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. "What they did to Nika is a true example of what the Islamic Republic does to us."

The death of Nika Shahkarami

On Sept. 20, Shahkarami joined the protests in Tehran like many other youths her age.

In an interview with BBC Persian, the teen's aunt, Atash Shahkarami, said her niece left their house around 5 p.m. local time and that they were in contact until around 7 p.m. Atash spoke to one of Shahkarami's friends and learned that the teen had posted a story on her Instagram page showing her burning her headscarf, Atash said.

Read more:

Images of violence at university prompt ‘rage and helplessness’ among Iranian-Canadians

According to her aunt, Shahkarami told her friend that she was being followed by security agents that night. After that, her family lost contact with her.

Shahkarami was missing for 10 days after attending the protest until her family found her at a morgue in a Tehran detention centre.

"When we went to identify her, they didn’t allow us to see her body, only her face for a few seconds," Atash told BBC Persian.

According to Iran's judiciary, Shahkarami went into a building on the night she disappeared and was found dead in the yard outside the next morning.

CCTV footage that claimed to show Shahkarami's last moments shows an unidentifiable person walking through an alley and pulling down their face mask before entering a building.

Tehran judiciary official Mohammad Shahriari said on Wednesday that a post-mortem of Shahkarami's body showed that the teen suffered "multiple fractures ... in the pelvis, head, upper and lower limbs, arms and legs, which indicate that the person was thrown from a height," as reported by the BBC.

Read more:

‘Mahsa is all these people’ — Vancouverites rally over death of Iranian woman in police custody

However, a death certificate for Shahkarami, which was obtained by BBC Persian from a cemetery in Tehran, states that the teen died after "multiple injuries caused by blows with a hard object."

In response to growing outrage, the Iranian government launched an investigation into Shahkarami's death on Tuesday.

"A case has been filed in the criminal court to investigate the cause of Nika Shahkarami’s death," said Tehran public prosecutor Ali Salehi, as reported by The Guardian. "An order to investigate the case has been issued."

On the same day, eight workers from the building where Shahkarami was allegedly last seen were arrested.

Mahsa Amini’s death in Iran brings worldwide solidarity

Duration 2:06   View on Watch

Shahkarami's aunt, Atash, has spoken extensively to media about her niece's death. She said that Shahkarami's Instagram and Telegram accounts were deleted on the day she went missing. According to BBC Persian, Iranian security forces are known to demand access to detainees' social media accounts so that certain information can be deleted.

Atash also told BBC Persian that Revolutionary Guards told the family that Shahkarami was in police custody for five days before being handed over to prison authorities.

Multiple reports have said that Atash and Shahkarami's uncle, Mohsen, were detained by Iranian authorities on Sunday after posting online about their niece and speaking to the media. These reports have not been confirmed.

Read more:

Iran’s president appeals for national unity as anti-government protests continue

On Wednesday night, state TV aired a recorded message from Atash saying, "Nika was killed falling from a building." According to BBC Persian, Atash also confirmed that her niece's body was found outside the building that government officials had flagged as the site of her death. Mohsen denounced the protests in the televised message.

These comments contradicted their previous statements about Shahkarami's death and a source told BBC Persian that Atash and Mohsen's messages were "forced confessions." The source alleged that these statements were recorded "after intense interrogations and being threatened that other family members would be killed."

Atash and Mohsen have since been released.

On Sunday, on what would have been the teen's 17th birthday, Shahkarami's family transported her body to be buried in her father's hometown of Khorramabad.

A source close to the family told BBC Persian that they had agreed under duress to not hold a public funeral for their daughter. The source also said that Iranian security forces "stole" Shahkarami's body from Khorramabad and secretly buried it in the nearby village of Veysian.

Online footage shows hundreds of protesters descending on Khorramabad's cemetery on Sunday, chanting anti-government slogans like "death to the dictator."

Shahkarami is just one of many young women and girls who have been killed during the Iran protests so far.

Hadis Najafi, 22, was shot dead by security forces on Sept. 21 after attending a protest in Karaj, according to her family. Her sisters say she was shot in the head and neck with live ammunition and suffered injuries from birdshot that was fired from a shotgun.

"They wouldn't return the body for two days, asking her father to say she had died of a heart attack out of fear," two sources close to the family told BBC Persian.

Hadis recorded a video message during the protest in which she said, "I hope in a few years when I look back, I will be happy that everything has changed for the better."

Her family says she was shot dead almost an hour after recording that video.

Video: Mahsa Amini death: Women lead the charge in protests against Iranian government

Mother of teen protester found dead says family threatened

Yesterday 

Iranian filmmaker details power of student protests

Duration 2:02   View on Watch

The death of 16-year-old Nika Shakarami, who went missing after attending protests in Tehran last month, has further energized the nationwide demonstrations in Iran, even as her mother tells news outlets their family is being threatened by Iranian security forces to change their story about the incident.

The protests erupted after the mysterious death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died Sept. 16 while in custody of the morality police, after she was reportedly arrested for not wearing a hijab properly. The demonstrations have turned into a movement, with many calling for an end to the Iranian regime. Many accounts on social media report an unprecedented number of teenagers participating in the protests.

"Our teenagers laugh at these [Iranian officials]," Mojgan Ilanlou, an Iranian documentary filmmaker, told ABC News.

Ilanlou says she has been on the streets most of the days of the protest witnessing a "fearless" young generation. Ilanlou says this generation doesn't care about Iran's leaders because the leaders have "turned themselves into jokes" with so many "shallow" decisions and statements. She says, "Who would be afraid of someone that they laugh at for a long time?"


A woman holds a sign bearing the names of slain Iranian women including Nika Shakarami during a protest against the Islamic regime of Iran and the death of Mahsa Amini in front of the Iranian Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 6, 2022.© Juan Medina/Reuters

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has blamed the U.S. and Israel for the unrest, calling Amini's death "a bitter one" and urging people to wait for the investigation into her death to finish.

MORE: Student protesters in Iran tear-gassed, arrested by police: Report

On the day she disappeared, Nika had posted stories on her Instagram account inviting her friends to join the protests, her mother, Nasrin Shakarami, said in an interview with Iran International TV on Thursday. That's how she learned her daughter had gone to the protests.

In her last message to a friend on Sept. 20, Nika said that she was being chased by security forces, her aunt told BBC Persian.

At some point, Nika stopped responding to the calls and her phone shut off, according to her family. The next morning, her family says they began searching prisons, police stations, and detention centers.

"No one would respond properly. It was a mess. And some of the parents were beaten. They also were trying to understand if their children were in prison," Nika's mother told Iran International.

Eight days after Nika went missing, the police called her family saying a body matched Nika's features, her aunt told BBC Persian.

After the family received her body, they realized the reported date of her death was the day she went missing, her mother told Iran International. She was not told why the body had been kept away from the family when she had her ID with her or why her Instagram and Telegram accounts were deleted the same night.

Her mother said in the interview with Iran International that security forces tried to seize Nika's body when they took her to their village to be buried. She said that local officials even asked her not to bury Nika in the village.

"I asked them not to oppress me with this one. I asked them to let me bury my daughter where I want," she said she told the local officials.

Later that night, security forces stole Nika's body from the morgue and buried her in a village several miles west of where Nika's family wanted to bury her, she told Iran International. Nika's uncle was arrested for objecting to the theft of the body and other relatives are wanted by police for objecting as well, she said in the interview. The family couldn't retrieve the body again.

Three days prior to that, Nika's aunt had shared details of the family's search for the teenager in an interview with BBC Persian listing the discrepancies they noticed in officials' accounts regarding Nika's case.

MORE: US sanctions Iranian officials for crackdown on protests

The aunt was arrested in a raid on her house two days after the interview, BBC Persian reported. She then appeared on a program on state TV that advocates say is known for allegedly forcing confessions, saying that Nika was not killed in the protests and that she died after falling from the roof of a building.


Iranian protesters set their scarves on fire while marching 

down a street on Oct. 1, 2022 in Tehran, Iran.© Getty Images

In a video aired by Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe, Nika's mother did not approve of her sister's account on state TV. Nasrin Shakarami said her sister had made comments under pressure from security forces. "They have put words in her mouth and forced her to make confessions," she said in the radio interview.

Nasrin Shakarami said in the video that she herself received several threats that she would face trouble if she does not "confess" the "scenario" that the regime wants everyone to believe about Nika's death.

An official with Tehran's homicide office, Mohammad Shahriyari, said investigations by the department show Nika was not killed in the protests, according to the Iran judiciary's news agency Mizan on Wednesday. "No bullet marks were found in the body of the deceased and the evidence shows that the death was caused by a person being thrown [from the building]."

However, Nasrin Shakarami told Radio Farda that Nika's death certificate attributes "repeated blows by a blunt object" as the reason for death.


Protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of a woman who was detained by the morality police in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sept. 21, 2022.© via AP

The Center for Human Rights in Iran, a U.S.-based nonprofit, condemned the Islamic Republic for using the "ragged inhuman scenario of forced confessions" to cover its "crimes and oppression." In a tweet Thursday, the group said that such confessions are "historical documents of unforgettable crimes."

The Biden administration announced sanctions Thursday against several senior Iranian officials for the violent crackdown on protesters. The State Department Friday did not outline additional measures, but condemned the deaths that have resulted amid the crackdown.

"This cruel and ongoing suppression of protestors just shows that the regime -- it clearly fears its people," State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said. "We're going to continue to coordinate with our allies and partners and respond to Iran's crackdown, as well as frankly, its state sponsored violence against women that we're seeing take place all across the country."

Commenting on the presence of teenagers like Nika in the protests, Ilanlou told ABC News that she had initially advised some teenagers on the street to go home while the "adults would take care" of the protests. However, their bravery encouraged her to keep participating in the protests.

"When I witness their courage, I start to think why I should be scared," Ilanlou said. She said this generation wants "to be in their own country and live with their own lifestyle."

Nika would've turned 17 on Tuesday, one day after her burial.

ABC News' Desiree Adib and Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.

CP24 personality alleges 'systemic pattern' of discrimination in human rights claim against Bell Media

Shanifa Nasser - Yesterday 

A well-known Toronto television personality has filed a human rights complaint against Bell Media, alleging "a systemic pattern" of racism, sexism and discrimination, adding that during her 11 years with the company, she was "treated as a token and a commodity."


In a complaint filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday, Patricia Jaggernauth, a weather specialist, remote reporter and co-host for the Bell-owned news channel CP24, describes being repeatedly passed over for promotions and earning less than a living wage.© Robert Krbavac/CBC

In a complaint filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday, Patricia Jaggernauth, a weather specialist, remote reporter and co-host for the Bell-owned news channel CP24, describes being repeatedly passed over for promotions and earning less than a living wage.

Jaggernauth says she watched as white colleagues, often newer ones, made it higher up the corporate ladder, while she wasn't even offered a contract — something she attributes to the fact that she is a racialized woman.

Part Guyanese and part Jamaican, Jaggernauth claims she was denied full-time stable employment and was instead forced to work weeks straight without a day off — an experience she says landed her in hospital with pneumonia because she felt she had no choice but to put work ahead of her health.

"I almost died doing what I loved because a freelancer can't say no. Every hour is bread, every hour is rent, every hour is that tank of gas," said Jaggernauth, who resigned from Bell Media last Tuesday.

In an email to CBC News, a Bell Media spokesperson said, "We do not comment on matters involving current or former staff members, but can confirm that Bell Media takes allegations of any potential discrimination very seriously, and are committed to a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment where employees can thrive.

"If a matter is brought to our attention where an employee did not feel adequately supported, a process is triggered to review and address when required."

'Good enough to fill in but never ... to invest in'

In an exclusive interview with CBC News, Jaggernauth broke her silence about her time at Bell.

At first, she said, landing a job there felt like "a dream."

"I'm the girl living in metro housing that got out. I'm the one that was never supposed to succeed," she said. "I knew that I loved people, I loved community, I loved conversation ... And where I was working provided that — but not ever on a contractual basis, always as a fill-in.

"How come I'm always good enough to fill in but never good enough to invest in?"

Jaggernauth says she was guaranteed just two days of work each week, and called at random to fill in for hosts who were off sick or away. With no certainty as to what her weeks would look like, she says she relied on the ability to take on other jobs to supplement her income — something she had done throughout her time there.

This past summer, management moved to limit that ability, blocking her from performing any paid activities outside of the company without management approval, according to her formal complaint. The rule was originally created in 2019 when Bell employees unionized, but was never enforced until this year, she says.

"Bell has done this while at the same time denying Ms. Jaggernauth promotions she has earned and is qualified for, and while refusing to provide her with full-time work," the complaint reads.

"At Bell, people of colour are cynically used as tokens," it adds.

Long days, short turnarounds led to breakdown: complaint

Jaggernauth's complaint comes on the heels of Bell Media's recent dismissal of celebrated chief anchor Lisa LaFlamme, who said she was "blindsided" when the company ended her contract at CTV National after more than 30 years as part of a "business decision." The move caused an uproar and in the days that followed, CTV News executive Michael Melling went on leave from the company.

In 2019, Jaggernauth says she contracted a virus and was hospitalized after "years of long days, short turnarounds, lengthy work stretches and being told to work for weeks upon weeks, non-stop."

After a three-month unpaid sick leave, she says she pleaded with Bell for more stability. What she was offered, she says, was a part-time contract formalizing her two days of work per week and giving her access to medical and dental benefits — with no additional shifts, no change to her wage and no ability to continue freelancing outside of Bell.

The complaint says the treatment Jaggernauth faced led her to suffer "a breakdown" during the most recent Bell Let's Talk Day while live on the air. In the segment, later posted to YouTube by CP24, five hosts open up about their mental health.

The last host to share is Jaggernauth, who speaks candidly about her personal and professional struggles, including the toll of working weekends for 11 years.

"I'm going to cry. Oh my God," she says in the segment, tearing up. "In this industry what I've found is you get to be in the bright lights, you know, here you have this amazing career and people think you're a multi-millionaire, you're so lucky, but do you want to put my shoes on guys?"

Jaggernauth alleges none of her supervisors reached out at the time.

'I'm walking away and I will persevere'

It wasn't until two weeks later when she reached out to her manager for help that a therapist was offered, she says. Ineligible for therapy through a benefits plan, Jaggernauth says she was finally offered a Bell-recommended therapist, but ultimately says she didn't feel safe with the arrangement and declined the help.

The complaint says Jaggernauth had repeated conversations with management about her concerns at Bell — concerns she says were not taken seriously. Among those she spoke to were Melling and the company's president, "however her complaints were sidelined," according to the complaint.

Bell Media employees are part of a union, however given settlements between employers and unions are often kept secret through non-disclosure agreements, Jaggernauth says she felt a human rights complaint was the best way forward.

A complaint at the commission can not only result in payment of denied wages but also monetary damages for alleged discrimination. It can also force policy changes such as pay equity says Jaggernauth's lawyer Kathryn Marshall of the firm Levitt Sheikh.

Jaggernauth says for her, the complaint goes beyond money — it's also about demanding change for women who look like her in the industry and for women overall.

As for her next steps, she says, "I came from hardship. I persevered. I started this career with hardship and I persevered, and I'm walking away and I will persevere."

CP24 anchor Patricia Jaggernauth launches human rights complaint against Bell Media


TORONTO — Longtime on-air television personality and CP24 weather specialist Patricia Jaggernauth has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Bell Media, alleging systemic discrimination throughout her 11-year career.

Jaggernauth's complaint, launched on Wednesday and first reported by CBC, makes allegations of discrimination based on race, gender and disability by Bell, her former employer. The Toronto-based media company owns cable news network CP24. In the complaint, Jaggernauth alleges Bell continually passed her over for promotions and attempted to restrict her ability to freelance outside the company despite never offering her a full-time job.

"She has been used as a token and commodity when it is convenient and beneficial,” the Toronto-based reporter's complaint reads. Jaggernauth identifies as being of Guyanese and Jamaican ancestry on social media.

“And Bell now wants to own her likeness and her career, despite putting her in a position where she cannot earn a living wage despite giving 11 years of her career to the company."

In a statement emailed Saturday, Bell Media said it cannot comment on matters involving current or former staff.

"Bell Media takes allegations of any potential discrimination very seriously, and are committed to a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment where employees can thrive," the statement said. "If a matter is brought to our attention where an employee did not feel adequately supported, a process is triggered to review and address when required."

In the complaint, Jaggernauth alleges Bell Media only offers her two days of paid employment per week, and she therefore earned most of her income doing freelance work. Her complaint alleges the company enforced a term this past summer that she could not perform any paid activities outside of the company without management's approval.

"Bell has done this while at the same time denying (Jaggernauth) promotions she has earned and is qualified for, and while refusing to provide her with full-time work," the complaint reads. The complaint details a number of positions she was allegedly denied "for no justifiable basis."

The human rights complaint further alleges an "unsafe and unhealthy work environment" at Bell Media caused her "a myriad of health issues," including severe stress, anxiety and depression. “Years of long days, short turnarounds, lengthy work stretches and being told to work for weeks upon weeks, non-stop with no breaks,” contributed to Jaggernauth being hospitalized in 2019, the claim alleges.


It says she later experienced a "traumatic" on-air breakdown during Bell Let's Talk Day. A segment from this year's Bell Let's Talk Day posted to CP24's YouTube channel shows five hosts, including Jaggernauth, discussing their mental health.

Jaggernauth begins crying when she opens up about her struggles.

"In this industry, what I've found is you get to be in the bright lights, you know, here you have this amazing career, and people think you're a multimillionaire, you're so lucky. But want to put my shoes on guys?" the clip shows her saying through tears.

Jaggernauth's complaint claims she approached her manager weeks later for help, and was offered a company-recommended therapist, who she said she wasn't comfortable speaking to.

The document also alleges men and women are paid differently at the company, and that Black women are not well represented on-air at CP24. "At Bell, people of colour are cynically used as tokens," the document reads.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission application states Jaggernauth repeatedly brought up her concerns with Bell management — specifically to Bell's president and vice-president of news Michael Melling — but that she was not taken seriously. Melling took leave from his job in August, amid the fallout from the ousting of Lisa LaFlamme as anchor of CTV National News, the company's flagship newscast.

Jaggernauth's lawyer Kathryn Marshall said in a statement that her client is "relieved to finally be telling her story."

Jaggernauth did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2022.

———

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Tyler Griffin, The Canadian Press

COMMENTARY: Do Canadians want Indigenous partnership in energy production? It’s complicated

globalnewsdigital 

The relationship between energy production and Indigenous Peoples in Canada has long been a sensitive topic, while the debate over Canada’s energy future has further been amplified because of the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine.


A decommissioned pumpjack is shown at a well head on an oil and gas installation near Cremona, Alta., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

In light of Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept .30, Canadians have been thinking about how their own energy sources should be developed, used and sold, and who should be a part of that discussion moving forward. The question of what stake Canada’s Indigenous Peoples should have in Canada’s energy development has never been more pronounced. The short answer, according to Ipsos’ research, is that it’s complicated.

Read more:

‘We want to be at the table’: Indigenous leaders call for more partnerships after Enbridge deal

Canada produces a variety of energy sources from its natural resources, such as oil, natural gas and renewables like wind and solar power, and Indigenous communities have become more and more involved in Canada’s energy development. According to a recent Ipsos poll, almost three quarters of respondents (72 per cent) say that Indigenous community involvement in developing Canada’s natural sources is an essential part of the broader reconciliation process. Two-thirds (66 per cent) go on to say that Canada owes Indigenous communities a financial stake in the development of its natural resources. A more moderate position is taken when it comes to including Indigenous communities in Canada’s oil and natural gas development, with support for that dropping to 47 per cent.

So, where does Canada draw the line in its support for Indigenous involvement in renewable energy on home soil?

Establishing sustainable relationships with Canada’s Indigenous communities and ensuring their involvement in renewable energy development has been substantial in advancing the Indigenous reconciliation process.

The Canadian government has provided $300-million worth of funding for developing clean energy projects that involve Indigenous land, as well as rural and remote areas across the country to support community priorities. Moreover, in March earlier this year, a historic partnership was formed between Indigenous groups with TC Energy regarding the Coastal GasLink pipeline, an issue that previously drew much scrutiny and attention during the Indigenous protests in February 2020, protests that only ended because COVID-19 overtook everything else.

Related video: How Indigenous ownership can be part of Canada's energy solution

Duration 6:02 View on Watch

Read more:

Pipeline divides community as Coastal GasLink prepares to resume work in B.C.

But progress around this budding partnership between Indigenous communities and Canadian energy corporations didn’t come without pushback. The same GasLink pipeline project brought international attention when solidarity blockades from the Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia opposed the construction of the pipeline.

Video: B.C. First Nations urge Canada to cease pipeline construction

At that time, an Ipsos poll found that 61 per cent of Canadians said the protests and demonstrations were unjustified and illegitimate. Yet three quarters believed the Canadian government must act now to raise quality of life for Indigenous communities. This gap between what we think is best for Canada and its inclusion of Indigenous communities in renewable energy projects in the reconciliation process, and the reality of such a partnership highlights the lack of certainty around a principal issue in this country. Has Canadian opinion changed since those events in 2020?

The answer is, not really. When asked if Canada’s natural resource development should proceed without Indigenous involvement in the most recent Ipsos poll, more than half of Canadians said it should not. On the flip side, three in 10 believe that Indigenous engagement is not paramount for Canada to proceed with the development of their natural resources. Six in 10 (58 per cent) go on to say that Canada requires Indigenous involvement to ethically develop its natural resources, while 27 per cent say that Indigenous engagement is not necessary in this regard. It seems as though Canadian perception towards Indigenous involvement hasn't shifted much since COVID began in 2020.

Canadians remain lukewarm towards Indigenous involvement in renewable energy projects.

A 2021 Ipsos poll highlighted the importance of such a partnership in providing economic support and independence, as well as offering employment benefits to Indigenous communities. Six in 10 said the government has been doing a much better job working with Canada’s Indigenous communities than it was 10 to 20 years ago, although less than half said that the government and natural resource companies could be doing a better job of consulting and engaging Indigenous communities in projects relative to their land.

The same study, however, revealed that when it comes to ownership, only half of Canadians say that Indigenous communities should have more control over any natural resource project within their territories. A 2021 paper revealed that there has previously been little to no Indigenous ownership of renewable energy projects, as Canadian corporations and government initiatives merely consult with Indigenous communities.

Video: Alberta’s economy looks to transition to renewable energy

While Canada has taken diligent steps in fostering a stronger relationship with its Indigenous population by collaborating on clean energy projects to help build their economic independence, Canadians seem uncertain about where energy fits into the reconciliation process, and whether it helps account for Canada’s colonial past and making amends.

Although Canadians share moderate support for Indigenous engagement in Canada’s energy development sector, there is noticeable opposition regarding the extent to which Indigenous communities are involved and whether their involvement should be required to develop Canada’s energy resources.

While Indigenous equity ownership has undoubtedly increased over time, Ipsos’ research highlights a potential gap in how much Canadians might support this equity ownership.

Read more:

Ukraine war, energy crisis has Canadians more supportive of oil and gas: poll

If Canadians are serious about reconciling with its Indigenous populations, addressing its colonial legacy, and taking steps to take accountability, their support is vital in ensuring this partnership comes to fruition in its truest form, without complications.

Maybe it’s not that complicated after all.

Lisa Byers is an account manager with Ipsos Public Affairs.

External audit describes 'anxious and fearful' employees at immigration call centre

Darren Major -CBC - Yesterday 

Employees at the federal government's immigration call centre are struggling under a demanding workload while dealing with "strict and unfair" evaluations from their superiors, according to an external audit.


A young new Canadian holds a flag as she takes part in a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 17, 2019.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

The audit by Charron Human Resources, released Friday, says employees at the Montreal call centre for Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reported having little time between calls, insufficient training, limited career development and a "strict" evaluation process that leaves them feeling "anxious and fearful."

It found the turnover rate at the centre is as high as 30 per cent, with 11 per cent of employees on leave without pay.

IRCC hired the company in March to conduct the workplace audit. It is the department's only call centre and fields immigration-related calls from across Canada and the world.

Former employees who had previously spoke to CBC News on condition on anonymity described an office of overworked staff constantly being monitored by management — where the pressure to field as many calls as possible affected everything, even bathroom breaks.

The audit follows a damning report released last year, in which IRCC employees complained that their racialized colleagues faced repeated use of offensive terms from supervisors and other staff, and had limited opportunities for advancement.

Union concerned

The union that represents employees at IRCC, Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Board says it's concerned about the audit's findings.

But the Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU) also says the audit did little to look into the previous reports of racism and discrimination.

"CEIU has reason to believe concerns related to racism and discrimination in the workplace were improperly addressed in the report and that additional steps need to be undertaken to have a clear and honest portrait of the situation," the union said in a statement.

The only mention of racism and discrimination in the audit is a recommendation to provide training about unconscious bias.

CBC News reached out to Charron for comment but didn't receive a response at the time of publication.

Other recommendations included introducing technology and strategies to ease the work process, providing leadership training to supervisors with a focus on employee well-being and evaluation, and establishing a staff development plan.

A statement from IRCC praised the "courage" of employees who participated in the audit, but did not explicitly indicate if it would implement the recommendations.

"The department agrees with the recommendations and is committed to providing a safe, diverse, equitable and anti-racist workplace," it said.

The union says it was not consulted by Charron about the recommendations.

Rocket man: It could take a long, long time, but startup has lit the fuse for a NASA north

Former U.S. space agency engineer on a mission to build a commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia

Author of the article: Joe O'Connor
Publishing date: Oct 07, 2022 • 

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off in Cape Canaveral, Fla. carrying a satellite on its first deep-space mission in 2015. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk. 

PHOTO BY NASA /Getty Images

LONG READ

Fin Armsworthy was driving back to Canso, N.S., on a mid-September afternoon, negotiating the twists and turns of Route 16 in a passenger van while mapping out the future he envisions for a mostly forgotten corner of the province that has been consistently gripped by stories of loss, outbound migration and economic despair.


The 65-year-old was born and raised in “Irishtown” — local speak for Canso — and he has witnessed the losses firsthand. Sometimes he will flip through his high school yearbook and see friends who moved away from the fishing village he still calls home.

Reminiscing can be a depressing exercise, but the Guysborough councillor isn’t wallowing in what once was. Instead, he’s brimming with optimism about what could be. And what he sees on the winding road leading to Canso are better days ahead, with good paying jobs, young families moving to town and tourists galore. Prosperity is at hand. You just need to believe in it.

“I tell you, it is a big thing,” Armsworthy said. “Launching rockets is the kind of game Steve has been playing all his life, just about, and I know there are some naysayers — hell, I have been one myself at different points in my life — but this is for real.”

Steve is Steve Matier, an American dreamer, former National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer and rocket launch test site manager from White Sands, N.M., who moved his family to Halifax four years ago to build a commercial spaceport on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, a seemingly far-out-there idea that might just get off the ground.

Steve Matier, a former NASA engineer, is the founder of Maritime Launch Services Inc., near Canso, N.S., a company looking to mimic the rocket launching services of the likes of SpaceX but from Canada’s Atlantic coast. PHOTO BY HANDOUT

Construction is underway at the Maritime Launch Services Inc. (MLS) site near Canso, a tentative first orbital launch date is set for summer 2024 and prospective customers, keen to have their satellite clusters hitch a ride to the heavens, have inked non-disclosure agreements stating their intentions.

And Matier is now chief executive of a publicly traded, penny-stock rocket-launching entity in what a recent Citigroup Inc. report projects will be a trillion-dollar industry by 2040.

“There are a lot of things that can still go wrong with the project,” he said. “We still need more financing. We still need permissions, and rockets and everything else, but we are past that maximum dynamic pressure.”

Maximum dynamic pressure, or MAXQ, is NASA-engineer-speak for the moment during launch when a rocket hasn’t yet reached space, but has passed the point where everything mechanical can blow apart in a blink.

Reaching MAXQ doesn’t mean no more risks are ahead, but it is the Hollywood moment when all the rocket scientists at mission control pull their headsets off and cheer.

MAXQ is also Maritime Launch Service’s ticker on the neophyte NEO exchange, which speaks to its CEO’s endearing, unflinching, space-loving geekiness.

Of course, there have been more days, and nights, than the 64-year-old cares to count when he was close to throwing in the towel, as the investors he figured would be banging on his door weren’t knocking, and the number of seabird studies undertaken to show blasting rockets into space eight times a year wouldn’t cramp its feathered visitors style exceeded two dozen.

A $10.5-million private funding round in May 2021 followed by a public listing this past April has eased Matier’s existential angst about getting to the initial launch stage, but it hasn’t eliminated the competitive pressure the company faces.

Building and launching rockets was once a government preserve, but the ground has shifted, with officials ceding turf to commercial space ventures underwritten by private billionaires: Elon Musk’s Space Technologies Exploration Corp. (SpaceX), Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holding Inc. and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin LLC.

Billionaire Richard Branson with crew members Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla on board Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity after reaching the edge of space in July 2021. 

PHOTO BY HANDOUT VIRGIN GALACTIC /Reuters

There are other established players with proven track records, too. For example, Colorado-based United Launch Services LLC has 150 successful launches to its credit, which is exactly 150 more launches than MLS.

Matier remains undaunted, because none of his competitors possesses a chunk of land on the ocean’s edge in rural Nova Scotia that gives his spaceport a clear shot at putting satellites into polar orbit.

“This is where the industry wants to put its satellites,” he said. “Because of our location, with thousands and thousands of miles of open ocean to the south of us before you hit South America or Africa, we have a real advantage.”

Long before Canso was a gleam in Matier’s eye, he and his wife, Anne, got hooked on genealogy, and discovered she had an ancestor — last name, McLay — who worked in the Cape Breton coal industry. They may have been living in New Mexico, but the Maritimes was at the top of their travel bucket list.

Now, the couple own a home in Halifax, are in mid-application for permanent residency papers and are considering becoming Canadian citizens.

“I am not allowed to screw up this project because of my wife’s heritage,” he said.

Building a spaceport, with all the state-of-the-art doo-dads, could cost more than $200 million. Matier said MLS doesn’t need to build a “field of dreams” to get to that first launch, but he still needs more money for the company to truly take flight.

Among those helping him find investors is Sasha Jacob. He is chair of MLS’s board and bought into Matier’s vision early on to the tune of a $500,000 stake. He also runs Toronto-based Jacob Capital Management Inc., and he is a space nerd whose great-uncle, Josef Blumrich, was a NASA engineer.

“Instead of becoming a smart, science-based person, I became an investment banker,” he said.

Jacob also knows people who know people.

Onlookers watch as Blue Origin’s New Shepard flies toward space. The December 2021 flight was the third human space flight for the company which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

PHOTO BY MARIO TAMA /Getty Images

Years back, former Ontario premier Ernie Eves was executive chairman of Jacob Securities, the renewables-sector focused investment bank Jacob launched in 2007. The firm later ran afoul of the Investment Regulatory Industry Organization of Canada, post-Eves era, netting its namesake a $100,000 fine in 2017. However, the regulator noted Jacob did not appear to have acted “maliciously” and no evidence was presented “that any clients were harmed.”

“It was a supervision citation,” he said, from Bora Bora, where he was vacationing with his wife.

Jacob has long been a player in the penny-stock realm, a dicey arena, but sometimes those bets pay off. What appealed to him in this case was Matier’s NASA pedigree, the projected growth of the space industry, the evolving regulatory environment around it and the big picture notion that Canada as a country is going to want to, well, reach for the stars, so why not start that journey on the East Coast?

“We see opportunities to get involved in things before they are effectively owned by the bank,” he said.

Jacob isn’t the only person Matier has made a good impression upon. Another board member, François Desjardins, is the former chief executive of Laurentian Bank of Canada.

A big part of the pitch involves the company’s location. No one had been talking about Canso as a town with a future until Matier appeared on the village’s doorstep five years ago. Lately, he has been talking about launches as major potential tourist draws; how space industry-related companies tend to cluster near launch sites; how the operational nuts and bolts of a spaceport rely upon the trades — electricians, pipe-fitters, technicians — and not a bunch of PhDs.

“We don’t need 30 different geeks with slide rules in Canso, that is not how it is done today,” Matier said.

Lest it be overlooked: the Maritime provinces have a long history of so-called smokestack chasing. (Anybody out there remember Malcolm Bricklin and his eponymous sports car?) A red carpet gets rolled out, industry players are wooed to consider opening the next big thing, and the hypothetical project gets touted by its champions for the jobs, spin-off industries and taxes it will surely create.

“It’s a strategy that does not have a very good track record,” Karen Foster, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Rural Futures for Atlantic Canada and associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said. “People are right to be skeptical.”

What, perhaps, is different about Matier is that he was just about the only guy doing the wooing for years. Banging on doors, cap in hand, asking for money, asking for people to see what he so clearly could: a unique opportunity for Canada to have a domestic commercial spaceport, instead of forever having to hitch a ride with someone else, someplace else.

“People need to look at whether they believe we are for real or not,” he said.

Councillor Fin Armsworthy has done his share of looking, and he sees a village drained of its youth.

“We have missed so many chances,” he said. “I think we got to take the game the way it goes, and this spaceport is the perfect opportunity.”

Let the countdown begin.

• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: oconnorwrites