Smelter pollution forcing relocation of 200 Rouyn-Noranda families

Quebec spending $88.3M to create new neighbourhood for impacted residents, while smelter owner Glencore will buy contaminated properties and lands

Stéphane Blais, The Canadian Press1 d

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Fonderie Horne, a foundry owned by Glencore, is seen in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., Oct. 29, 2022. An announcement this week that some 200 families would be relocated from a Rouyn-Noranda neighbourhood contaminated by smelter pollution was met with anxiety and concern for those who will be moved out. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Stephane Blais

ROUYN-NORANDA, Que. — An announcement this week that some 200 families would be relocated from a Rouyn-Noranda neighbourhood contaminated by smelter pollution was met with anxiety and concern for those who will be moved out.

While some residents of the Notre-Dame neighbourhood, in the city about 630 kilometres north of Montreal, see it as a chance to leave a sector where arsenic emissions from the Horne copper smelter are associated to a higher risk of cancer, others greet the impending move with sadness and anguish.

Ginette Bédard has felt the full range of emotions in recent days.

Since learning this week she will have to move from the neighbourhood she's called home for 30 years, she progressed from anxiety to tears to fear.

"This doesn't work for me at all, where am I going to go? At my age? Retired?" said Bédard, a former orderly.

The Quebec government announced Thursday it would provide $88.3 million to support the City of Rouyn-Noranda to create a neighbourhood, while Glencore, the company that owns the smelter, will buy the properties and land from willing sellers in the contaminated area. 

The company will also be required to reduce its emissions to meet a target of 15 nanograms per cubic metre by 2027, down from a level of 100 nanograms per cubic metre that was permitted under a 2017 agreement with the province.

During a visit to the neighbourhood, The Canadian Press noted the snow was sprinkled with black particles in several places. The regional health board in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue said an analysis is underway and Glencore said the particles are dust from copper concentrate.

Notwithstanding health risks related to arsenic, and despite the smell and noise from the factory, Bédard likes the neighbourhood where her grandchildren also reside.

"I was fine here. It's quiet. I'm happy, I have my routines," Bédard said. "Now (with the move), I'm totally in the dark. I'm discouraged. I'm very sad." 

Her monthly rent is $550 and Bédard says there's no way she'll be able to find another apartment at that price.

"There are people who are worse off than me in the neighbourhood, poor people who are in tough. What will they do?" she asked.

Residents such as Audrey-Anne Dostie, who lives next door to Bédard, see relocation as a chance to escape a place they feel is dangerous for their health.

"I've thought several times of leaving," Dostie said, noting she wants to have children one day — "but not here." 

One of the reasons she and her partner haven't left is high rent elsewhere and a shortage of apartments.

Meanwhile, property owners will have to negotiate with Glencore, which will purchase properties and demolish them. How the company will determine the value is being worked out, a company spokeswoman said.

Marie-Ève Duclos, owner of a four-unit building, is a bit fearful of the process of selling her property.

"To what point will I, as a citizen, be properly equipped once seated across from a multinational like Glencore to negotiate something?" Duclos asked. She is also concerned about the fate of her tenants.

"I have tenants who don't have a car, they can't be relocated outside the city," Duclos said. "Here they are near all the services, the hospital, the schools, the pharmacy — it's their neighbourhood, their ties are here. That worries me."

On Thursday, Quebec's Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest reassured the 200 families they would be able to stay in their homes until a new residence was ready. Of the money being allocated to the City of Rouyn-Noranda, $58 million is for new housing, but there's no timetable for completion. There will also be support for those who see their rents go up.

For her part, Bédard is skeptical of politicians' assurances and wonders if their actions will back up their words.

Rouyn-Noranda Mayor Diane Dallaire said she's aware there's a delicate task that awaits them and assured residents impacted will be kept in the loop throughout the process.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2023.

Stéphane Blais, The Canadian Press

Improve health of Indigenous people and culture by decolonizing tobacco, says Cree doctor

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First Nations people off reserve twice as likely to smoke as 

non-Indigenous people: Public Health Canada

Samantha Schwientek · CBC News · Posted: Mar 18, 2023 

Dr. James Makokis uses western and Indigenous medicines to treat his patients. (Submitted by James Makokis)

High rates of smoking among Indigenous people not only pose serious risks to personal health, but also culture, according to a Cree (nehiyô) doctor in Alberta. 

"The number one way that we can ensure people are healthy is to stop smoking," according to Dr. James Makokis, who is from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation and works in Kehewin Cree Nation and south Edmonton. 

First Nations people off reserve are almost twice as likely to smoke as non-Indigenous people, according to Public Heath Canada. According to a 2016 report, half of First Nations men (50 per cent) and women (49 per cent) living on reserve in Ontario reported smoking daily or occasionally.

Makokis said he's seen many patients who have smoked since they were preteens and are now coping with a variety of health problems. He said communities must engage respectfully with elders about smoking. 

"The younger generation needs our elders to be living to healthy ages, to be able to transfer that knowledge around language, around culture, around spirituality, around medicines [and] around songs and ceremonies, so that when they get older they have all of the tools to ensure that continuity of knowledge into the future," he said.

Culturally appropriate services needed

Elder Doreen Spence from Saddle Lake Cree Nation said tobacco was traditionally used by Cree people in ceremony — in a sacred fire or as an offering to the earth.

"At the beginning of time we were gifted with tobacco. Tobacco is a sacred herb," Spence said. 

At age 86, she still sometimes grows the plants in small containers but she only uses the medicine for ceremonial purposes. 

Spence said tobacco has been misused and it's important to understand how and why that happened.   

Member of the Order of Canada Doreen Spence and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon at Rideau Hall after Spence was given one of Canada's highest honours last fall. (Master Cpl. Anis Assari/Rideau Hall)

Traditional use of tobacco usually involves minimal inhalation, according to research from the University of Saskatchewan. 

"When we look at the instrument that we use to smoke tobacco, people in our teachings are not generally to inhale the medicine, but kind of just smoke it," Makokis said. 

But as commercial tobacco entered communities, it became confused with traditional use of tobacco, he added. 

"Within our communities there is the misperception that if you are smoking you're engaging in some form of prayer because it's a medicine," he said.

Spence agrees and said a better understanding of ceremony and Indigenous people's place in the cycle of life is essential to lowering smoking rates. 

Programs to reduce smoking

Government programs have helped to reduce smoking rates since the '70s but with Indigenous smoking rates still higher than for non-Indigenous people, Makokis said there's a need for culturally-specific programs. 

CBC News reached out to Alberta Health Services to find out what resources are available to reduce smoking among Indigenous people, but did not hear back by the time of publication. 

Tobacco and other materials for a ceremony by a Wolastoqey elder. (Myfanwy Davies/CBC)

Such programs should address tobacco use in a culturally respectful and trauma-informed way, Makokis said. That should include understanding how addiction is often connected to trauma, and Makokis highlighted specific sources of trauma, like the '60s Scoop and residential schools. 

"When we look at the tremendous amount of trauma that Indigenous peoples have experienced through colonial violence, we know that they're more predisposed to regulating their emotions… by misusing substances, whether that is alcohol or drugs," Makokis said.

Vaping also a concern

Makokis said he's also worried about young people and vaping. Like with smoking, Indigenous youth are more likely to vape than non-Indigenous youth.

A 2022 report from Statistics Canada estimated that in 2019, 31 per cent of Indigenous youth aged 15-17 had vaped in the last 30 days compared with 20 per cent of non-Indigenous youth. 

Makokis said more must be done to help reduce the rates of smoking and vaping for young people, which includes better access to cultural services and activities. 

"One of the number one protective factors for Indigenous youth in terms of preventing engaging in harmful activities is being connected with their culture, identity, language, ceremonies and spirituality," Makokis said. 

Yellowknife council, workers approve collective agreement ending strike

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City council voted to approve the agreement at 9 p.m. 

Friday after five week labour disruption

Hilary Bird · CBC News · Posted: Mar 18, 2023 

Strikers on the picket line outside Yellowknife City Hall last week. (Walter Strong/CBC)

Yellowknife city council and unionized municipal workers have approved a new collective agreement, ending a five week strike and lockout.

At 9 p.m. Friday, council members gave third reading to a bylaw to approve the new agreement after council received word that union members had voted to ratify it earlier in the day.

In a press release posted on its website the Union of Northern Workers (UNW) and parent union The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) say the new agreement includes a compounded wage increase of 5.8 per cent. In emails obtained by CBC, the union says workers will receive a wage increase of three per cent retroactive to 2022 and 2.75 per cent for 2023. 

In its release, the UNW says workers will also receive a one-time signing bonus of $1,800 for full-time employees, $850 for part-time and seasonal employees and $300 for casual part-time employees.

"The last few weeks have been long, cold, and hard. I am amazed by the strength of the members and their ability to keep their humour throughout," UNW President Gayla Thunstrom says in the release.

"I am so proud of the members standing up for what they believe in and for each other." 

At Friday night's council meeting, mayor Rebecca Alty said city facilities will not immediately reopen and that it will be a "phased" reopening. What that reopening will look like is unclear.

A Yellowknife worker stands in -29 C temperatures. More than 200 workers went on strike Feb 8. (Hilary Bird/CBC)

The five-week labour dispute was marred with controversy as both sides repeatedly accused the other of negotiating in "bad faith". 

City administration also accused picketers of harassing contract workers crossing the picket lines at the solid waste facility and the area where the new aquatic facility is being built. 

Last month, the city won an injunction in N.W.T Supreme Court to restrict the amount of time picketers could hold up workers and vehicles trying to get past picket lines.

But PSAC North regional executive vice president, Lorraine Rousseau says picketers felt the support of the local community.

"Over the past weeks, city workers showed us what solidarity looks like … we were surrounded by solidarity from Yellowknife's residents, local businesses, and unions from coast to coast to coast."

 

Farmed animals suffer amid exploding meat demand

Despite demands for improved farmed animal welfare, livestock is reared in confinement and isolation as intensive factory production also compounds pollution.



Stuart Braun

DW
03/16/2023

March 16, 2023

The global production of animal flesh for human consumption was 45% higher in 2020 than in 2000 as the global taste for meat skyrockets.

The carnal boom is being fed through increased farming intensity, with animals such as chicken and pigs kept in smaller, more restrictive spaces such as cages, pens and stalls.

Though in the European Union, 94% of citizens are concerned for the welfare of farmed animals — and near 60% are prepared to pay more animal welfare-friendly meat production — the caging of hens, pigs or rabbits remains widespread.

Welfare concerns extend to the environment. For one, animal meat production is bad for the climate, producing 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions — roughly equivalent to the entire global transport sector, according to Greenpeace.

Nitrogen-rich feed given to meat-producing animals also produces manure high in toxic ammonia, which in turn produces the potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen oxide. Ammonia impacts animal welfare by damaging the eyes and respiratory systems of battery hens, for example.

Animal rights activists argue that humane livestock farming — including free range egg laying hens — can reduce feed, fuel and water needs, cutting costs and pollution by also recycling nutrients and improving soil.

But campaigners ultimately agree that reducing meat consumption and production is the ultimate way to minimize the welfare and environmental impacts of meat.

As the opposite happens, how are farmed animals being treated around the world, and how might their welfare be improved?

Meat alternative produced by a women's cooperative

04:30  'End the cage age'

In 2021, the European Parliament overwhelmingly committed to prohibiting the caging of farmed animals.

A subsequent law being drafted by the European Commission will release all hens, mother pigs, calves, rabbits, ducks, geese and other farmed animals from cages across Europe by 2027.

The law was inspired by a citizen's initiative in the EU to "End the Cage Age" that garnered 1.4 million signatures and aims to end the pain and trauma for over 300 million animals who spent all or part of their lives in cages, pens or stalls.

This goal has almost been reached by several EU countries: Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany are between 98% and 87% cage-free.

In Spain, by contrast, more than 86 million animals are farmed in cages, with only 13% of livestock unconfined.

With most EU countries having a cage-free rate under 40%, including France (34%) and Greece (22%), freeing factory farmed animals across the region in the next few years seems unlikely.

Some pigs spend their entire lives inside

Image: Marius Schwarz/IMAGO

Across the bloc, nearly all adult female pigs who experts say are highly intelligent and crave outdoor space, spend around half the year inside "gestation crates" in which they can barely move — let alone turn around.

According to the US-based animal rights group, The Humane League, these sows are exploited as breeding machines that continually produce piglets in cold, dark, dirty pens where they often succumb to sickness. They "are among the most abused animals on the planet," state the group.

In China, the construction of a 26-story pig farm skyscraper rearing 1.2 million animals annually in Hubei province is also raising both ethical concerns and fears that it will become a breeding ground for zoonotic diseases.

Meanwhile, draft legislation passed in October in Germany will allow consumers to choose products using more humane production methods. All pork products, for example, will be legally required to have a label that differentiates between five different methods of rearing: barn pen; barn pen and extra space; open-air barn pen; run and open land; and organic.

Yet animals raised on organic farms are not immune from suffering. One German study shows that more than half of dairy cows in organic farms have mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder, yet are still milked daily. While mastitis is also common in conventional farms, organic production standards prohibit antibiotics and hence limit effective treatment in organic cows.

A report by German-based consumer watchdog Foodwatch shows that organically farmed pigs — where animals are given straw and more space, for example — suffer from pneumonia, open wounds and abscesses at almost the same rate as in conventional farms due to failure to monitor livestock health.

Feeding our chicken addiction

While the European Union is one region trying to encourage cage-free farming, around 33.1 billion chickens were farmed globally in 2020 — more than five for every human on the planet.

This represents a 130% rise in 20 years, illustrating the scale of the quest to feed the growing lust for animal flesh through ethical, low-intensity methods.

Chickens raised for both meat and egg production (pictured) are often kept in sprawling factory farms

China Foto Press/IMAGO

Back in the US, broiler chickens that are farmed for their meat constitute 95% percent of the animals slaughtered worldwide each year for food, note the California-based Factory Farming Awareness Coalition. The US is the world's number one chicken meat producer.

Broiler chickens are typically raised with 20,000 other birds in a 16,000 square foot (1,486 square meters) shed, which equals around three-quarters of a square-foot for each bird.

Amid this overcrowding, chickens are grown to full size and slaughtered within six weeks. Poultry in the 1950s reached the same weight in around triple the time, according to Compassion in World Farming.

Due to the rapid growth of birds bred for their oversized appetites, their legs cannot support their body weight, forcing them to lie on the floor while suffering pain and lameness. Organs like the heart and lungs are also put under strain, resulting in early death.

The confinement of cattle

While cows bred for beef globally are partly raised on pastures, they increasingly spend their final months in confined "landless" feedlots where they are typically fattened on a grain diet dominated by high-energy corn — as opposed to grass, their natural diet — before slaughter.

Cows are regularly kept in confined spaces without protection from the elements in the weeks before slaughter

Image: David R. Frazier/Danita Delimont/IMAGO

Feedlots have an average capacity of around 1,000 cows in the US, while in South Africa the largest lot holds 130,000 cattle, according to experts.

Cattle around the world — including calves who can spend their whole life in these lots — typically have little or no cover and endure cold, muddy conditions in the winter, or suffer heat stress during hot and dry summers in lots with no shade.

In Australia, one of the world's biggest beef exporters, there are some 500 of these feedlots that housed a record near 1.3 million cattle in 2022. According to the RSPCA animal welfare group in Australia, the lots' abrasive and muddy surfaces cause lameness, pain and lesions in the cattle due to an inflammatory disease affecting the hooves.

Nonetheless, the welfare of cattle in Australia confined to feedlots is making some progress, with over 90% of them now accredited under national animal welfare standards including the draining of muddy pens, hospital pens for sick cattle, and giving extra care to pregnant cows and new-born calves.

Proponents of the feedlot system argue it's a more sustainable way to produce meat as forests and other ecosystems are not converted to pasture. But experts also show how barley or corn diets in feedlots produce around 40% more emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

An attempt to rethink the separation between animal liberationist and communist politics. This is a text which, we hope, faces in two directions.Mar 26, 2017

Beasts of burden - Antagonism and Practical History | libcom.org

Libcom.org

https://libcom.org › article › beasts-burden-antagonism-a...

This stubborn shrub is helping to keep Arctic river banks intact as permafrost thaws

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Plants getting credit for stabilizing banks of big rivers that 

were expected to erode

Liny Lamberink · CBC News · Posted: Mar 16, 2023 

Arctic willow, or "salix arctica," photographed on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut during a 2017 Arctic botany expedition. (Paul Sokoloff/Canadian Museum of Nature)

Leon Andrew describes Arctic willow as a nuisance.

People who have cabins near the Mackenzie River in the N.W.T.'s Sahtu region regularly have to clear the shrub away, the elder said. But if you knock it down to the ground, it'll have grown up to your knees again by the following summer. 

"The moose, they enjoy that," said Andrew, who lives in Norman Wells and is on a steering committee for the Mackenzie River Basin Board. "But for human beings, it's just making travelling in the bush on the Dene trails and stuff … it's getting harder for a person to get from point A to point B." 

In a study published last week in Nature Climate Change, however, willow is getting some credit for holding together Arctic river banks researchers had expected to crumble in a warming climate.

It was a bit of a surprise for Alessandro Ielpi, a geomorphology professor at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus who led the research.

A timelapse of satellite images showing the evolution of Big River on Banks Island in the N.W.T. between 1972 and 2019. (Source: United States Geological Survey)

Ielpi had set out to test a widely held assumption that as the global temperature rises and permafrost thaws, Arctic rivers would meander more.

What he found instead was the sideways migration of ten big Arctic rivers in the N.W.T., Yukon and Alaska, including the Mackenzie, Porcupine, Slave, Stewart and Yukon rivers, have actually slowed down in the last 50 years.

"At first, I was confused," he said. 

So he verified his methodology, expanded his research and grew more confident in the initial result. His conclusion is river banks are being held together by plant species moving further north — another consequence of the changing climate. 

Alessandro Ielpi, a professor of geomorphology at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan Campus, paddles the Stewart River in the Yukon. (Submitted by Alessandro Ielpi)

Steve Kokelj, a senior permafrost scientist with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey who was not involved in the study, called it "robust." He said Arctic greening is "the strongest and most logical" conclusion for why rivers aren't meandering as much.

"Arctic greening is really something that is widely accepted in the scientific community," said Ielpi. But, he said, nobody had expected it to be strong enough to counteract the effect of permafrost thaw on river banks. 

"Species like Arctic willow are expanding. They're growing thicker and they're occupying ecological niches that previously … were barren or just occupied by grasses and mosses," Ielpi said. "Plants are extremely efficient at strengthening channel banks and limiting erosion."

The Old Crow River, a tributary of the Porcupine River, winds its way through the landscape. The Porcupine River was examined as part of the study. (Roy Leveillee)

Why researchers thought Arctic rivers would move more

The idea Arctic rivers would move more as the climate warms is based on what Ielpi calls first principles — like general logic and intuition. 

"Think of trying to dig a hole in the frozen ground … that would be pretty hard," he explained. "Because permafrost is degrading, scientists have intuitively predicted that Arctic rivers would be able to erode their banks more easily and more quickly." 

But it was never verified by observations from the field, he said. 

"This hypothesis was just taken for granted … it had not been tested properly until we decided to do that in our study." 

The Mackenzie River in April 2021, one month before floodwaters rose and damaged homes in Fort Good Hope. (Avery Zingel/CBC)

In order to carry out that test, Ielpi and his team took five decades worth of satellite images and stacked them on top of each other to compare and measure how riverbanks have shifted over time. The analysis showed the sideways migration of the rivers had decreased by about 20 per cent over the last half-century.

What science is supposed to do

One of the study's limitations, said Ielpi, is the results can't be extrapolated to other rivers. 

"Bank strengthening that is brought about by permafrost or vegetation, they will not act the same in large rivers and small rivers," he said. "Nothing at this point tells us that small rivers will behave the same way." 

Permafrost scientist Steve Kokelj points to an area off the Dempster Highway where the northern permafrost is thawing, leading to severe erosion. (CBC)

Kokelj, who works primarily along the Mackenzie Delta, also pointed out that while the study may have uncovered a broad trend, it doesn't necessarily reflect what people living near big Arctic rivers experience locally. 

"If you're a land user or a cabin owner in one of these communities, the Delta is going to continue to change in really dynamic ways," he said, adding that the Mackenzie River is one of the most dynamic river environments in Canada.

• Endangered plant found only in N.W.T. 'doing nicely' according to recent survey

• Historical spill exposed by shoreline erosion cleaned up in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.

Kokelj said the study is also an example of how science makes observations, challenges assumptions, and prompts researchers to ask new questions about how things work. 

"That's what science is supposed to do," he said. 

 

Chess holds a special status in Iceland, and an annual tournament leaves players with lasting memories

CECIL ROSNER

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

One of the most popular open tournaments in the world is held each spring in Iceland, and Canadian players who attend often come away with a unique chess experience.

David Filipovich of Toronto is an instructor at the Chess Institute of Canada and the Annex Chess Club. He says he has played in more than 300 tournaments over his career, but last year’s Reykjavik Open was a highlight.

“It’s a chess-loving country, steeped in chess history,” he says. The tournament and related events take on a festival atmosphere, with the mayor presiding at the opening ceremonies and champagne at city hall to celebrate the closing.

“Playing under one roof with people from 39 countries is an incredible experience,” says Filipovich, who won a prize at the event. “My only thought was: Why haven’t I done this sooner?”

Iceland is noteworthy in chess history for hosting the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky world championship match in 1972, and also for being the country that granted Fischer asylum late in life.

This year’s tournament, scheduled for March 29 to April 4 at the iconic Harpa concert hall, is the 37th since former world champion Mikhail Tal won the first. More than two dozen grandmasters are registered, and organizers are hoping for 300 players.

Patrick Lessmeister v. David Filipovich, Reykjavik, 2022

HANDOUT

Black’s game is better, but White has a menacing Rook. What does Black play here?

Black played 20…. O-O-O and after 21.Rxa7 Kb8 and White’s Rook will run out of escape squares, for instance, 22.Ra4 Ndb6. Black won the exchange and the game.