‘We Work Until We Are Dying’: Palm Oil Labour Abuses Linked To Top Brands

Workers claim they've been cheated, threatened and forced to work off insurmountable debts despite some only making $2 per day.

• Margie Mason and Robin McDowellAssociated Press via CP

ORE HUIYING/AP VIA CP

An Indonesian migrant worker rests after working on a palm oil plantation run by the government-owned Felda in Malaysia in early 2020.

PENINSULAR, Malaysia — An invisible workforce of millions of labourers from some of the poorest corners of Asia toil in the palm oil industry, many of them enduring various forms of exploitation, with the most serious abuses including child labour, outright slavery and allegations of rape, an Associated Press investigation has found.

In Malaysia and Indonesia, these workers tend the heavy reddish-orange palm oil fruit that makes its way into the supply chains of many iconic food and cosmetics companies like Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

Together, the two countries produce about 85 per cent of the world’s estimated $87 billion (US$65 billion) palm oil supply.

Palm oil is virtually impossible to avoid. Often disguised on labels as an ingredient listed by more than 200 names, it can be found in roughly half the products on supermarket shelves and in most cosmetic brands. It’s contained in paints, plywood, pesticides and pills. It’s also present in animal feed, biofuels and even hand sanitizer.

The AP interviewed nearly 130 current and former workers from two dozen palm oil companies who came from eight countries and laboured on plantations across wide swaths of Malaysia and Indonesia. Almost all had complaints against their treatment, with some saying they were cheated, threatened, held against their will or forced to work off unsurmountable debts. Others said they were regularly harassed by authorities, swept up in raids and detained in crowded government facilities.

They included members of Myanmar’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, who fled ethnic cleansing in their homeland only to be sold into the palm oil industry. Fishermen who escaped years of slavery on boats also described coming ashore in search of help, only to be trafficked onto plantations ― sometimes with police involvement. They said they worked for little or no pay and were trapped for years.

This has been the industry’s hidden secret for decades.Gemma Tillack, Rainforest Action Network

The AP used the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers of the world’s most-consumed vegetable oil, as well as U.S. Customs records, to link the labourers’ palm oil and its derivatives from the mills that process it to the supply chains of top Western companies like the makers of Oreo cookies, Lysol cleaners and some of Hershey’s chocolatey treats.

AP reporters witnessed some abuses firsthand and reviewed police reports, complaints made to labour unions, videos and photos smuggled out of plantations and local media stories to corroborate accounts wherever possible. In some cases, reporters tracked down people who helped enslaved workers escape. More than a hundred rights advocates, academics, clergy members, activists and government officials also were interviewed. 

Though labour issues have largely been ignored, the punishing effects of palm oil on the environment have been decried for years. Still, giant Western financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and the Vanguard Group have continued to help fuel a crop that has exploded globally, soaring from just five million tons in 1999 to 72 million tons today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Sometimes they invest directly but, increasingly, third parties are used like Malaysia-based Malayan Banking Berhad, or Maybank, one of the world’s biggest palm oil financiers. It not only provides capital to growers but, in some cases, processes the plantations’ payrolls, with arbitrary and inconsistent wage deductions that are considered indicators of forced labour.

ORE HUIYING/AP VIA CP    

A worker bathes at a palm oil plantation run by government-owned Felda in peninsular Malaysia in early 2020. 

“This has been the industry’s hidden secret for decades,” said Gemma Tillack of the U.S.-based Rainforest Action Network, which has exposed labour abuses on palm oil plantations. “The buck stops with the banks. It is their funding that makes this system of exploitation possible.”

The AP found widespread labour abuses on plantations big and small, including some that meet certification standards set by the global Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an association that promotes ethical production ― including labour practices ― and whose members include growers, buyers, traders and environmental watchdogs.

Some of the same companies that display the RSPO’s green palm logo signifying its seal of approval have been accused of continuing to grab land from Indigenous people and destroying virgin rainforests that are home to orangutans and other critically endangered species.

As global demand for palm oil surges, plantations are struggling to find enough labourers, frequently relying on brokers who prey on the most at-risk people. Many foreign workers end up fleeced by a syndicate of recruiters and corrupt officials and often are unable to speak the local language, rendering them especially susceptible to trafficking and other abuses.

They sometimes pay up to $6,700 (US$5,000) just to get their jobs ― an amount that could take years to earn in their home countries ― often showing up for work already crushed by debt. Many have their passports seized by company officials to keep them from running away, which the United Nations recognizes as a potential flag of forced labour.

Countless others remain off the books, including migrants working without documentation and children who AP reporters witnessed squatting in the fields like crabs, picking up loose fruit alongside their parents. Many women also work for free or on a day-to-day basis, earning the equivalent of as little as $2 a day, sometimes for decades.

‘It makes us very sad’

The AP talked to some female workers who said they were sexually harassed and even raped in the fields, including some minors.

The workers AP interviewed came from Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Philippines and Cambodia, along with Myanmar, which represents the newest army of exploited labourers. The AP is not fully identifying them or their plantations to protect their safety.

“We work until we are dying,” said one worker sitting in a room with two other colleagues at a Malaysian plantation run by Felda, a government-owned company. Their eyes filled with tears after learning Felda was one of the world’s largest palm oil producers.

“They use this palm oil to make all these products,” he said. “It makes us very sad.”

The Malaysian government was contacted by the AP repeatedly over the course of a week, but issued no comment. Felda also did not respond, but its commercial arm, FGV Holdings Berhad, said it had been working to address workers’ complaints, including making improvements in recruitment practices and ensuring that foreign labourers have access to their passports.

Nageeb Wahab, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, a government-supported umbrella group, called the allegations against the industry unwarranted: “All of them are not true,” he said.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Association said it has been striving to improve labour conditions for the last five years. Soes Hindharno, spokesman for the country’s Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, said any company violating government rules and regulations on serious issues like child labour and not paying women workers could face sanctions, including having their operations shut down.

Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble all said they do not tolerate human rights abuses and investigate allegations raised about companies that feed into their supply chains, taking appropriate action when warranted, which can include working with suppliers to improve conditions or suspending relationships when grievances are not properly addressed.

Deutsche Bank reiterated its support of human rights, Vanguard said it monitors companies in its portfolio for abuses, and JPMorgan Chase declined comment.

Maybank expressed surprise at the criticism of its standards, saying that “we reject any insinuation that Maybank may be involved in any unethical behaviour.”

This story was funded in part by the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

With files from Sopheng Cheang and Gemunu Amarasinghe.

Gen Z’s Radical, Virtual Quest To Save The Planet

Molly Longman

It’s time to wake up. On Global Day of Climate Action, VICE Media Group is solely telling stories about our current climate crisis. Click here to meet young climate leaders from around the globe and learn how you can take action.

Many people first started paying attention to the youth climate movement in 2018, when now-17-year-old Greta Thunberg began protesting outside Swedish Parliament in her home country. Her small act of civil disobedience had a ripple effect. Students across the globe began striking by refusing to attend classes, which eventually turned into the “Fridays For Future” movement.

It may sound like a ploy to get out of chemistry, but it’s not. Gen Z ranks climate change as the most important issue of our time, according to last year’s Amnesty International survey of more than 10,000 members of 18- to 25-year-olds. “Older generations were not out there protesting in the streets on this issue the way Gen Z is,” asserts Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, PhD, who teaches political science and environmental policy at Christopher Newport University. These under-25 activists have formed organizations like Fridays For Future and Zero Hour, a movement that focuses on helping young people take action. Others have sued their state or even the United Nations. They’ve staged hunger strikes. They’ve performed spoken word poetry.

These kids care. A lot.

“Younger people see the total mess that Boomers and, to a lesser extent, millennials have left, and they have to figure out how to fix it,” says Jessica Green, PhD, an associate professor focused on climate governance at the University of Toronto. That’s a heavy burden to bear. Many self-report feeling eco-anxiety, or “a chronic fear of environmental doom,” according to the American Psychological Association.

“For some Gen Z folks with whom I work, their eco-anxiety is related to a continuation of generations’ worth of oppression,” notes Kristi E. White, PhD, a clinical health psychologist with a focus on how climate change affects well-being. She’s referring specifically to BIPOC communities, which “have always been the most severely impacted by sustainability failures.” Others are confronting the more recent realization that they’re “inheriting many generations’ worth of avoidance and poor stewardship,” she says.

While not every young adult is channeling their energy into activism, the post-millennials who are seem particularly ardent. Their attitude is: “The world is falling apart right now, and if you think it’s okay, what’s wrong with you?” Green says.

We talked to leading climate activists in the U.S. — most of whom still can’t buy a legal drink — about how they got their start, what their activism looks like mid-pandemic, and why they think the youth are such incredible change-makers.

 

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Alexandria Villaseñor

Age: 15

Location: New York City, NY

Activism History: Founder of Earth Uprising; co-founder of the US Youth Climate Strike, a part of the Fridays for Future movement; filed a complaint against the United Nations, along with Greta Thunberg and 15 other climate activists.

On getting her start in activism

“When I was young, 5 or 6, I wanted to be a writer. I never would have expected that I’d end up being a climate activist at 15. But in 2018, I started striking at the end of the week as part of Fridays for Future. People called me alarmist and dramatic. I would tell them that, in the future, school wouldn’t matter anymore because we’d be running from multiple crises. And here we are. That future is now. Even if COVID didn’t exist, the entire West Coast couldn’t go because of the air quality. It would be so unsafe. And other places are beginning to see catastrophic events because of climate change.

“The fires show us just how quickly we need to take action. I have a lot of family out in California. I was actually there over the last few months, very close to the LNU Lighting Complex fire. I’m very lucky to have been able to leave a few weeks ago. But as an asthma sufferer, I’m still recovering from the smoke inhalation. The scientists are warning us about the future and that it will get so much worse. We should listen to them.”

On channeling fear for the future into action

“I feel a sense of eco-grief. For me, that means a feeling of sadness and loss. I’m seeing the collapse of our biodiversity. I recently wrote a chapter in the book All We Can Save, and doing that reminded me of the Monarch butterflies in California. When I was growing up every year in the springtime, we’d get just so many butterflies. I’d see them on the playground, and in the fields, and it was always so exciting. But the population has declined drastically in the past couple of years. And so it’s just extremely upsetting to see those things that were very personal, and know that future young people won’t be able to experience them.

“One thing that helps my eco-grief is taking direct action. Going out and protesting.”

On why younger generations make great activists

“Young people are forces when it comes to climate change because we speak very directly and bluntly. We have resources such as technology and social media and use them to our advantage when it comes to organizing and connecting with each other. Especially during the pandemic, we’ve been using social media to our advantage. Doing initiatives and campaigns, and putting pressure on politicians and those in power.

“Youth activists think more outside the box, and don’t think just in terms of what’s ‘politically possible.’ It’s not only that we’ll be using the planet the longest — although things will get worse in our lifetime. We’ll see the worst consequences of climate change.

“The youth climate movement has also seen how our movement needed to grow and be more intersectional, that it needs to have more people of color and people being affected directly by the climate crisis at the front lines. Because of that, I think that we’ll come out of this pandemic even stronger.”
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Sophia Kianni

Age: 18

Location: McLean, Virginia

School: Indiana University, public policy analysis major

Activism History: Founder of Climate Cardinals; Youngest member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group On Climate Change

On getting her start in activism

“I first got into climate activism in sixth grade. My dad and I have a tradition of stargazing together. He’s super into astronomy, and we’d go out every night when I was little and he’d talk to me about the different constellations. But when I was visiting my grandmother’s house in the capital of Iran, Tehran, I went out and couldn’t see the stars because of the air quality. I thought, That’s so sad.

“The climate crisis is affecting the Middle East, with temperatures rising more than twice the global average. I was struck by the fact that my relatives weren’t really aware of what was happening and didn’t know about climate change. And so for the past, like, six years, I’ve been translating climate information to help educate them.

“And it’s not just my relatives. I found a study that showed only 5% of Iranian university students could properly explain the greenhouse gas effect. I saw there was clearly an issue, and I couldn’t find much climate change education that was available in Farsi, the language they speak. So, I founded Climate Cardinals, where I work with volunteers to translate climate information into 109 different languages. Recently we partnered with the UN’s environmental program to translate their Youth #ForNature Manifesto that they’re going to be releasing soon in different languages.”

On why younger generations make great activists

“I think it’s because we have more to lose. We’re going to be around much longer than the politicians who are in their 60s and 70s who haven’t taken action on the climate crises. They just don’t have as much as stake. Hopefully the rest of us have many years left on this planet, and we don’t want to continue to live knowing it’s getting worse every year.”

On going to extremes to raise awareness

“Last year, at 17, I got up at 5 a.m. and took an Uber by myself to DC instead of going to school. I was the youngest person and one of the only women to join a week-long hunger strike at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. I was demanding that she take action, and wanted an on camera, hour-long meeting with her to discuss the climate emergency. She was calling the Green New Deal ‘The Green Dream, or whatever.’ I could only join in DC the first day because I couldn’t skip more school, but I continued the hunger strike. I had such a horrible headache by the time I stopped. The first thing I finally had was a strawberry and almond milk smoothie because I didn’t want to overwhelm my body.

“Sometimes you have to escalate things to raise awareness, to get people and press to pay attention. And the climate crisis is being escalated every year, so.”

On inciting change during a pandemic

“There’s no substitute for nonviolent, civil disobedience like the way Fridays for Future was doing with their weekly protests. But there are a lot of ways to continue activism virtually, during COVID. I’ve been very much focused on continuing to grow Climate Cardinals during this time, and our transcriptions can be done from the safety of your home. Anyone who cares about climate change should know there are still ways to get involved, and I’d urge them to take the first step and put themselves out there.”
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Meghna Shankar

Age: 19

Location: Redmond, Washington

School: University of Washington, physics and computer science major

Activism History: Organizer at Fridays For Future Seattle; Member of Sunrise UW

On getting her start in activism

“In fifth grade, I read Al Gore’s book on climate change, Our Choice. The book was a gift from my dad. It got me interested in the cause. Then in high school, I heard about Greta Thunberg’s strike for global action on March 15, 2019, so I started organizing a protest. We walked out, went to our city hall, and spoke to our mayor and our city council president about our concerns about climate change. I believe students in [112 countries] also walked out in solidarity with the movement that day. I think it really shows that many young people are willing to put their education at stake for the sake of their future.

“I was so nervous that day because I had never done something like that before. I honestly was known for being a more quiet student, and following the rules. So for me, it was a big deal. I kept striking on some Fridays after that. I remember I would talk to my friends, and some of them would say, ‘Oh, I don’t see why this is such a big issue. I don’t want to skip lunch to come to your protest.’ In high school, there tends to be a lot of apathy coming from students because they don’t want to stand out. You know, they wanted to look cool. But climate change is something you can’t really opt out of.”

On inciting change during a pandemic

“Since the COVID pandemic, we haven’t been able to strike in person, but Friday For Future has been doing digital campaigns. We’ll do Twitter storms, and create informational graphics for the Global Day Of Action.

“But it’s not the same. I think if you don’t see the protests every day, you feel detached after a while. With Fridays For Future, we were able to engage young people in the community who weren’t necessarily able to do more intensive actions like going to policy makers offices or writing letters. Very young children would go to our strikes, and they would just hold up a sign. Anyone could get involved. Now we have to resort to posting photos on our Instagrams every Friday, which isn’t the same as standing outside for an hour. It feels a bit sad, but there are a lot of other youth-led organizations that are filling the gap virtually.”

On channeling fear for the future into action

“In the back of my head, I’m always thinking about climate change. Because of the fires on the West Coast, I’m looking out my window right now and I can maybe see half a mile away, I can’t really see the mountains.

“It’s scary because even adults who claim to support you aren’t doing enough to make change. Mayors, senators — they say ‘oh we’re so proud of what you’re doing, and we support you.’ And they’re happy to take a picture with us, but they don’t really do anything. Or they’ll approve things that increase carbon emissions. They say they’re for climate justice and the next week approve a new cruise ship terminal Seattle. And, right now, that gives me more anxiety than not being able to protest in the streets. It feels like adults are seeing the changes happening around us but nobody cares enough to do something about it. That’s why we have to act.”
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Zanagee Artis

Age: 20

Location: Clinton, Connecticut

School: Brown University, environmental studies and political science

Activism History: Co-founder and deputy director of policy at Zero Hour; Fellow for Joe Biden’s campaign

On getting a start in activism

“When I was a kid, I loved the beluga whale at the Mystic aquarium in Connecticut. I have a picture of me standing in front of the giant tank with huge whales. I look so tiny. Going to the aquarium back then got me interested in environmental activism. I learned about pollution, and thought, Look at all these amazing sea creatures that are being impacted by plastic in the ocean.”

On why younger generations make great activists

“The youth climate movement is really about taking our futures into our own hands, but also fighting for people who are facing climate change in the present. Environmental actions of the past were not as radical in calling for systemic overhaul as we are today. But we know that without dismantling the systems at the root of climate change — the patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, and racism — we’ll never be able to have climate justice and have a transition to sustainable energy for the future.

“We started Zero Hour to emphasize that we have run out of time to address climate change. You can see rising temperatures in the Arctic, for indigenous communities their lifestyles and livelihoods are changing, you can see desertification, and deforestation happening in the Amazon. We know that this has been happening for at least the past few years now, and that climate change has been a stressor on communities around the world. And so we need to act right now.”

On channeling fear for the future into action

“I think a worst case scenario for the planet is something that most people are incapable of comprehending. The amount of change to the natural environment that will happen if we don’t act is terrifying. It could look like elongated hurricane and tornado seasons. Or like wildfire spreading from the West coast all throughout the country. We don’t really know for sure, although the climate scientists know a lot. It could look like the apocalypse. That’s why we’re fighting every day.

“After I finish at Brown, I’m planning to go to law school, and I’m interested in studying environmental or constitutional law. I want to do this to enhance my powers as an activist. I want to advocate for young people, especially those who are unable to vote, and anyone who I believe is being disproportionately harmed by a system that was not designed to protect them. And I’d like to someday eventually run for elected office.”
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Delaney Reynolds

Age: 21

Location: Miami, Florida

School: University of Miami, marine science and geology major

Activism history: Founder of The Sink or Swim Project; member of the Youth Leadership Council of EarthEcho International; Suing the state of Florida; Member of the CLEO Institute’s Leadership Council

On getting a start in activism

“I grew up in and around the water, learning about sustainability. And because of that, I’ve always had a vast love for the ocean. When I was 8 years old, I actually wrote my first children’s book about ecology based on No Name Key, a super-small island in the Florida Keys where I grew up part-time. As I was researching for that, I began to learn about climate change and how it’d affect the habitat that I love so dearly. I started to become extremely concerned because of how dire the situation seemed to be. I went on to found The Sink or Swim Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on sea level rise and other environmental topics.

“It’s sad; my family has lived in Florida for generations, but recently, we’ve started having really bad flooding days every October. They have to close down the park where both my father and I learned how to swim. I hate it, because I want my future kids to follow in my dad and my footsteps and learn to swim there too.”

On going to extremes to raise awareness

“I’m the lead plaintiff in the Reynolds vs. The State of Florida climate change lawsuit. Seven of my friends and I are suing our state for not upholding duties outlined in the Florida constitution and something called the Public Trust Doctrine. That doctrine says the state has the responsibility to protect our land, the water, and, we believe, also the atmosphere. We’re asking the state to implement laws to help cut back carbon emissions so that we can help protect our atmosphere, because we know that burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is what’s causing the crisis. So we’re basically asking the judge to require that the state do their job.

“I have to say, I never expected to sue anyone at the age of 18. Now I’m 21, and we just had our first hearing in June. But we’ve kept pushing on it. It’s been daunting at times, but it’s also really important. We’re seeing the effects of sea level rise, and it’s hurting the coral reefs, the land, and us.”

On channeling fear for the future into action

“Our family just finished recovering and renovating from Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in 2017 at our home in the Keys. Then we recently had another hurricane, Sally. When she went over the panhandle last week, all we had was some light rain, luckily. But hurricane season is extremely stressful. With a record number of storms forming in the Atlantic, it is a constant reminder of climate change. Warm ocean water is what fuels these hurricanes, so as we continue to warm our planet, these storms will become increasingly more frequent and stronger. That’s scary, and that’s why we have to keep fighting.” 

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Bisexual Awareness Week: Lili Reinhart Admits her DMs are Filled with ‘More Quality Human Beings’ Since Coming Out


Dragana Kovacevic
  

© Getty Images Lili Reinhart attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California.

Coming out as bisexual wasn’t a straightforward journey for Lili Reinhart, as it seldom is for many bi women.

Revealing this personal aspect about herself and her sexuality was met with some mixed feedback when the Riverdale star first made the announcement, earlier in the summer. 

“Although I’ve never announced it publicly before, I am a proud bisexual woman,” she wrote underneath a flier. Reinhart, 24, was on her way to a rally held by the WeHo LGBTQ+ community, in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, a time when the intent was for the focus to be on Black communities experiencing racism. 

While some had questioned her timing (and even her motives), Reinhart was clear that it wasn’t a decision she made lightly. Speaking to the LGBTQ&A podcast recently, she shared, “I was afraid of coming out. I didn’t want people to tell me that I was lying to get attention or something. And so I just kept my mouth shut. Also, I’ve told people in the past and they’ve told me, ‘Oh, it’s a phase.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, great, thanks.’ So that’s discouraging, obviously.” 

Reinhart also didn’t want to come out while she was still in a relationship. Sharing her full sexual identity publicly until after her recent breakup with Cole Sprouse meant that she didn’t bring unnecessary attention and questions whether she was looking for something else, while in a hetero relationship. There was also another, more personal reason: “Because it’s easy for people to question, ‘Oh, but you’re with a man that’s straight.’ It’s like, well, Anna Paquin is married to a man, but she is bisexual.” This is just one common misconception about bisexual women.

Still, while coming out was not without its challenges, it’s also brought her many positives.

This is the first Bisexual Awareness Week that Reinhart is celebrating publicly, and it’s also allowed her to meet people she might not have otherwise.

“I did have a couple of ladies sliding into my DMs which I thought was funny, but also flattering,” she said. “It was interesting to see the difference in my DMs after I came out, which was a nice little surprise…And also just like, I hate to say it, more quality human beings.”

The post Bisexual Awareness Week: Lili Reinhart Admits her DMs are Filled with ‘More Quality Human Beings’ Since Coming Out appeared first on Slice.

How 2020 became the summer of activism both online and offline

Kalhan Rosenblatt

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A pandemic, the death of George Floyd and an upcoming presidential election were just a few of the things that have called Americans to action this year.

But while some called 2020 the apocalypse, others said it is a much needed look in the mirror.

“So, 2020 is this really intense year with all of these things happening … we have these social uprisings and I think that one thing I don’t really know if people realize that the pandemic is doing is -- it is revealing all of the social cracks in our country,” Lydia Kelow-Bennett, assistant professor in the department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, said.

The summer was marked by a surging movement of activism calling for social change but with the coronavirus pandemic affecting how people interact with one another, many of these calls to action took place online.

Social movements fueled by social media are not new, according to Alyssa Bowen, a doctoral candidate in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an expertise as a historian of global contemporary social movements. She pointed to the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movements, both of which occurred in the early 2010s, as predecessors of 2020s progression into digital activism. And with the pandemic forcing people into their homes, oftentimes they could watch a protest against the president or a protest for Black Lives Matter unfold in real time.

“You’re seeing people staying at home without a ton to do except watch Netflix and go on Twitter, and I think people took great notice of what's going on even more than usual, because they had real-time access to what was going on at the protests,” Bowen said.

While it’s unclear if the summer of 2020 marked a milestone in terms of the number of online activist movements, it was anything but quiet.

“It was a very activist summer in the United States,” said Stephen Duncombe, a professor of media and culture at New York University and a co-founder of the Center for Artistic Activism.
The summer of protest and a pandemic

George Floyd’s death on Memorial Day set in motion a national reckoning with the systemic inequity that Black Americans have been subjected to in this country for centuries. Thousands took to the streets in protest of anti-Black racism and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I do think that white Americans had a different experience with the death of George Floyd than they had with deaths of quite literally dozens of other Black people going all the way back to [the attack on] Rodney King in the 90s,” Kelow-Bennett said.

© Elijah Nouvelage Image: Georgia (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images file)

The flames of activism and protest continued to burn in the digital space as well, where social movements both macro and micro attempted to chip away at biases and inequities.

On Twitter, people began matching donations en masse to bail funds. In one case, more than 50,000 individuals donated $1.8 million in 24 hours to support the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund. But less substantial acts, like when about 28 million people posted plain black squares to Instagram as part of #BlackoutTuesday, were criticized for subscribing to a kind of “slacktivism” and for drowning out important hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter.

Cracks that had been revealed in the social systems of the nation fueled national anger as people attempted to find ways to make their frustration known.

“People felt that the system wasn’t working. Not just the police system, although obviously the police system wasn’t working, but that was symptomatic of a much larger failure,” Duncombe said.

Over the summer, social media was awash with different forms of protest, with performers like Tobe Nwigwe using TikTok to share his song, “I Need You To,” which became an anthem in calling for the officers’ involved in Breonna Taylor’s death to be arrested.

But beyond Nwigwe’s song, Taylor’s death began to take shape as a meme, often using the format of a misdirect where a person would tweet or post a video that at first appeared to be about a mundane task and then would pivot into a call for justice.

Some said keeping the calls alive by any means was worth it, but others said the format trivialized her death.

Kelow-Bennett said the memes felt both like an act of desperation by some who were seeking to raise awareness by any means necessary, while in other cases, opportunists were using the moment to chase clout.

“It’s also an opportunity, if we’re honest, for easy activism. Like, if you post this Breonna Taylor thing, you let people know what it is you support, and you support justice for her, but it can become very performative,” she said.

While some users harnessed social media to demand justice for the victims of systemic inequity, others used it to hold the platforms themselves accountable.

On TikTok, Black users demanded that platforms address their own internal biases and elevate the content of creators of color at the same rate as their white counterparts.

In June, the app apologized to its Black users, acknowledged the inconsistency in what content was being elevated and promised to do better.

Some Black users reported seeing an improvement, while others said the app still had large strides to make.

While it’s hard to know who is partaking in meaningful activism and who is partaking solely in “slacktivism,” much of the movements of the summer took place online. But the ease of participating in online activism can sometimes be its Achilles’ heel, Duncombe said.

© Provided by NBC News Image: Protesters raise their fist during a demonstration in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020. (John Minchillo / AP)

“The ease in which you can buy up all the tickets to Trump’s election rally, the ease at which you can send off a petition, also is its weakness too,” he said.
Teens, TikTok and Trump

Online activism also took on politics this summer -- one notable organized effort was an attempt to affect the attendance numbers at President Donald Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally in June.

K-pop stans, or ardent fans of Korean pop music, joined forces with TikTok users to attempt to troll the president by reserving tickets to the rally with no intention of attending. Trump’s re-election team boasted it would fill the BOK Center, which can hold as many as 19,000, but only 6,200 supporters showed up, the Tulsa fire marshal told NBC News -- though it’s unclear if the effort actually affected attendance.

“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s then campaign manager, said after the event.

When Trump said he would ban TikTok on the last day of July, users claimed it was retaliation for their troll. However, there’s no evidence the president was after retribution in making the move.

Trump TikTok threat could motivate young people to vote

Kelly Dittmar, an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden, said the younger generation deserves some credit for using a new tool for outreach and engagement.

“It actually doesn’t matter so much if it messed up the rally. It matters if it got some young people who wouldn’t have otherwise thought about this presidential election to think about it and to think about the implications,” Dittmar said.

Clara McCourt, 18, of New Jersey, who had made a ticket reservation to the rally, said at the time that TikTok had been used as a tool for political organizing and could be a boon or a threat to the candidates.

“I personally see a lot of politics on my TikTok … it’s definitely a very powerful tool in informing my generation,” she said.

In a Pew Research survey conducted in June, 54 percent of social media users, ages 18 to 29, responded saying they had used social media platforms in the last month to look for information about rallies or protests happening in their area.

The advent and rise of the internet has democratized the ability to speak, Duncombe said, adding that this means it has also given even young people — who are sometimes too young to vote — a way to make their voices heard.

“I’m not surprised to see young people being more active because in a lot of ways young people have a sense of agency online that I certainly didn’t have when I was their age. They’re used to being heard,” Duncomb said.

Other ways young people mobilized online this summer include March For Our Lives, which was unable to hold its typical rallies and marches, pushing for voter registration in digital spaces, and groups like The Poll Hero Project working to get young people to sign up to work polling places not only to avoid the potential shortage but also to relieve older poll workers who could be more vulnerable to Covid-19.

Beyond politics, teens also utilized social media to fight misogyny, traditional beauty standards and racism.

Scarce moments of joy

Amid the global pandemic and moments of protest and fear, were sparse moments of joy.

Meme culture continued to thrive in quarantine, gifting the internet instant classics such as the “Laughing Jordan,” a series of images from the ESPN documentary series “The Last Dance.”

Scores of people fell in love with the “Strawberry Dress,” a nearly $500 Lirika Matoshi design that in any other summer would have been seen by those wearing it running into one another, but instead helped people feel a little more fashionable amid the sweatpants fatigue of quarantine.

And the song of the summer, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP,” a female empowerment anthem with not-safe-for-work lyrics was both fitting of a summer marked by moving the needle forward for equality, while also giving the world a moment to dance away its troubles.

Kelow-Bennett said the joy of “WAP” is emblematic of both the ability of Black Americans to hold both joy and sorrow in the same moment, a type of contradiction that was highlighted this summer.

“Living with this long amazing history of having come so far and looking to the future and realizing we still have at least as far to go to see freedom, those contradictions are what mark Black experience. They are what makes us special. It’s what makes us, I believe as a professor of these things, us beautiful,” she said.

With the reflection of the summer on the cracks in the social systems of America, the fever pitch of protest and an onslaught of social movements, Kelow-Bennett said while some may call the summer of 2020 a turning point for the country, she sees it as a breaking point.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, she said. She likened it to a broken leg that continues to heal improperly, and the only way to fully repair the limb is to break it again.

“That is kind of how I see the United States. We keep trying to heal these breaks but they’re not set right in the first place, and so the reason then why these issues keep coming up, the reason why we have not addressed racial justice, effectively in this country, is because we never set the break,” she said.

“... we could use this opportunity as a breaking point to break and reset something on a better course.”

Ontario police services board calls Six Nations members halting housing development 'terrorists'


Jorge Barrera

© CBC Contractors for Losani Homes walk away from the entrance to the housing development site known as 1492 Landback Lane on Thursday. They were turned away from conducting locating work for a natural gas pipeline on the contested parcel of land.

A southern Ontario police services board is calling on the Ontario Provincial Police to arrest an NDP MP and take action against what it calls "acts of terrorism" committed by members of Six Nations who halted a housing development in Caledonia, Ont.

Members of Six Nations have been occupying the McKenzie Meadows housing development, known as 1492 Landback Lane, for over two months despite an injunction extended by an Ontario court in August.

Caledonia is about 20 kilometres south of Hamilton and next to the Six Nations reserve, which has the largest population of any First Nation in the country with over 27,200 members.

The parcel of land in question is part of a case before the Ontario Superior Court filed by Six Nations in 1995 against the provincial and federal government over the illegal dispossession of Six Nations lands and trust monies. A trial is scheduled for October 2022.

Bernie Corbett is chair of the Haldimand County police services board and a long-time councillor for Haldimand County, which oversees Caledonia. He said he and Haldimand County residents are "fed up" with the stalemate that remains on the parcel, despite an Ontario judge recently extending an injunction barring people from crossing onto the property.

Corbett said he was particularly perturbed by Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green's visit last week to the site. He said the OPP should have arrested Green on site.

"In my estimation he trespassed, he should have been arrested because a judge's order was issued. Those people should not be there, it's private property," said Corbett.

"[Green] is not immune to that type of situation and it concerns me he went out there... He bad-mouthed the community, the OPP and the federal government. That exacerbated the problem."

The OPP did not respond to a request for comment. Over two dozen people have been arrested at the site so far allegedly defying the injunction.
'Acts of terrorism'

The Haldimand County police board also aired its grievances with the OPP during a public meeting Wednesday that was attended by the OPP's West Region Commander John Cain, who is in charge of overseeing policing of the site.

"These people who claim to be peaceful Aboriginals and only want to take alleged Aboriginal land have crossed a line," said a position document prepared for the meeting by the police board.

"They have openly disobeyed orders of the court. They have committed acts of aggression and intimidation which by Canadian Criminal Code definition are acts of terrorism. These Aboriginals are not protesters, they are now by legal definition terrorists."

Green said the police board's statements were racist and examples of "anti-Indigenous colonial violence." Green said the police board represented only the views of the "far-right" in Haldimand County.

"If I was Indigenous, hearing these statements by the chair of this police board, I would fear for my safety at the hands of police as I leave the territory," said Green.

"Not only are the comments racism, they are targeted and they are meant to incite violence against Indigenous people... If there was a line to be crossed, it would be the line of human rights and the code of conduct related to both elected officials of the municipality and the police services board." 

  

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green criticizes the Haldimand County police board statements as racist.

In the document, the Haldimand County police board also singled out Skyler Williams, who has acted as a spokesperson for 1492 Landback Lane, mentioning reports of his involvement in incidents during the 2006 conflict over a separate housing development in Caledonia known as Douglas Creek Estates, which subsided after the province bought the land.

A statement issued by members of 1492 Landback Lane said "The board is violently racist, viewing Indigenous lives as barriers to corporate profit. Their statements amount to calls for police to target our community and Skyler Williams in particular which is a threat that is intolerable to our community."

The statement also called for the police board's resignation.
'Rule of law'

Police board vice-chair Brian Haggith, a former OPP inspector who retired in 2014, said he believes the OPP's approach to Indigenous policing — which follows recommendations from the Ipperwash inquiry called after the 1995 shooting of Dudley George during the occupation of Ipperwash provincial park — is broken.

Haggith, who was one of the incident commanders when the 2006 Caledonia conflict flared, said there needs to be a third-party review of the Ipperwash framework which should lead to an overhaul.

"I understand that Canada has 400 years of history… and I understand they have viable land claims, everybody does... We have a system in our democracy and our democracy is based on the rule of law and that is how we all get along," he said.

"These people, if they have a bona fide, legitimate land claim they should, like every other person, take that matter to the court... If they have a strong enough case, the courts could order a stop to construction until the matter is settled."

Haggith said ultimately it's the federal government's failure to deal with outstanding land claims that has created a cyclically volatile situation in the region.

© Dan Taekema/CBC An OPP officer stands near a blockade on Argyle Street South just outside Caledonia on Aug. 5.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller have offered to meet with the Six Nations band council and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, but no meeting has yet been set.

"We believe the best way to resolve outstanding issues is through a respectful and collaborative dialogue, which is vital to building stronger relationships and advancing reconciliation," said a statement from Bennett's office.

"Canada deeply values its relationship with Six Nations and is committed to continuing to work collaboratively to address Six Nations' historical claims and land right issues. We are actively working with the community and look forward to meeting at the earliest opportunity."

Land sold to squatters in 1800s

The site, at 1535 McKenzie Road, was once known as Lot 3 and part of the Haldimand Tract, which was granted to the Haudenosaunee of Six Nations of the Grand River in 1784 for allying with the British during the American Revolution.

Lot 3 was sold between settlers during a period of widespread squatting on Six Nations land, leading to complaints to the colonial authorities. In 1844, the colonial authority, through its Indian Office in Kingston, issued a public notice announcing squatters were "required forthwith to remove from said tract."

However, the colonial authorities sold 11.5 acres of Lot 3 to a man named Thomas Nicholas in 1845 for $506.25. Nicholas had in turn previously purchased the land from a squatter named George Bryant, who declared squatters rights to the plot, according to a recent research report by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council, the traditional governing body of Six Nations. The sale was finalized in 1853, past the 1851 due date for the instalment plan that was part of the deal, according to the research.

"Thus rendering the sale useless," according to the confederacy research report.

"The Haudenosaunee did not benefit from the proceeds of this sale. Crown patents were being issued by the Crown unilaterally, thus creating their own registry base. They stole it fair and square."  

  

© CBC Skyler Williams, spokesperson for 1492 Landback Lane, takes a break from insulating a wooden shelter at the site.

Skyler Williams said he sees the police services board statements and documents as a "direct threat" to his personal safety.

"It is certainly worrisome for my kids and certainly for my wife, so yes, I'm concerned," said Williams.

"I hope it's just ignorance. I generally hope they just don't know about the history of this land... It's hard to live in a world where someone would hate you because of the colour of your skin, because of where you come from, because you're on the wrong side of the tracks."

Williams said Six Nations is being hemmed in by developments on land that has been stolen and the community cannot expand due to the bureaucratic obstacles to adding new lands to reserves. Williams said the community can't rely on the land claims process or the courts because it takes decades for anything resembling movement to occur.

"To say these 40-year-old land claims processes that in my opinion are broken [are] the only path forward, then this is going to continue to happen, like it's happening across the country," said Williams.

Canadian viewers of HBO's 'Watchmen' should know the KKK helped bring down a provincial government in 1929


James M. Pitsula, Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Regina

© (HBO) In 'Watchmen,' Angela Abar (Regina King) finds KKK garb in the closet of Judd Crawford (Don Johnson), her late friend who was Tulsa’s police chief.

The HBO show Watchmen, which was nominated for 26 Emmy awards, has used science fiction and the superhero genre to probe white supremacy, police corruption, trauma and institutional racism across time. The show, a “re-mix” based on the original Watchmen comic series engages the subject of policing and the Ku Klux Klan.


Beyond Watchmen, the Klan may be most familiar to some contemporary Canadians through its high-profile American and Hollywood portrayals.

But as I trace in my book Keeping Canada British: The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan, the Klan also existed in Canada, first appearing here in 1921. And nowhere else in Canada did the Klan achieve the influence it attained in Saskatchewan — where it helped bring down a government.
Origins in ex-Confederate soldiers

In 1866, immediately after the American Civil War, a group of ex-Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tenn., formed an organization called the Ku Klux Klan, after the Greek word “kuklos,” which means circle.

The Klan propped up white racial supremacy by means of violence and intimidation, including beatings, torture, sexual assault and murder. The Klan faded out in the 1870s, but was revived in 1915 when a small group of men gathered at Stone Mountain outside Atlanta, where before an altar beneath a fiery cross they swore allegiance to the Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

By the fall of 1921 there were 100,000 members in the United States. The peak membership is estimated at three million to six million (or higher) in the 1920s, but the precise number is not known because the records at Atlanta headquarters were destroyed.
First appearance in Canada

The Klan’s first appearance in Canada was in 1921, when branches were formed in Montréal and West Vancouver.

Cross burnings were sighted in various locations, for example, in Fredericton, N.B., at the Mount Saint Vincent convent in Nova Scotia, and at the St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic church in Melville Cove, near Halifax. The Klan reported as many as 7,000 enrolled just in the Toronto chapter, although as political scientist Allan Bartley notes this claim may be exaggerated.

He finds the Klan “initially exercised its strongest appeal in southwestern Ontario,” where Black people were “targets of rising racism.” But “the Klan also exploited traditional Protestant animosities against Catholics and French Canadians. There were diatribes against Blacks, Jews and foreigners, and avowals of respect and loyalty to British traditions and institutions.”

In Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, the Klan advanced its capacity to exploit local prejudices against those who didn’t fit neatly into moulds of British Protestant Canadian nationalism.

© (John Boyd/Library and Archives Canada, PA-087848) A gathering of the Ku Klux Klan in Kingston, Ont., July 31, 1927.

Klan organizers Lewis Scott and Pat Emmons, both from South Bend, Ind., arrived in Saskatchewan in late 1926. They preached white supremacy, and to that extent the message was the same as it was in the United States. But the message was tailored to local conditions.

The 1931 census showed that for the first time since Saskatchewan was established as a province, people of non-British origin formed the majority of the settler population. There was a small Black population in Saskatchewan, and a growing number of immigrants from central and Eastern Europe.
Preserving ‘traditional’ social order

For many British Protestants, who fashioned themselves as rightful “nativists,” it seemed that “foreigners” were taking over the country. Combined with this was a desire to preserve their traditional gender and moral order.

Votes for women and more women in the paid work force, women smoking or bobbing their hair suggested that gender roles were changing. The Klan did not want this, partly because they thought that controlling women’s sexuality was essential to keeping the white race pure.
Saw themselves as ‘moral arbiters’

The 1920s was also the era of prohibition of alcohol, a regime that was difficult to enforce. There was also a general anxiety about prostitution, opium and gambling all of which were disproportionately blamed on the non-British population.

As scholar William Calderwood noted in his 1973 article, “Religious Reactions to the Ku Klux Klan in Saskatchewan,” Protestant clergymen were prominent in the ranks of the Klan. (Calderwood also wrote an 1968 master of arts thesis, The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux Klan in Saskatchewan while at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus).

They saw the Klan as a bulwark against the moral collapse of society. Canadians had fought in the First World War in large part for the British Empire, and its fresh psychological wounds influenced the rise of right and fascist politics.

25,000 members in Saskatchewan

The Klan declared that Canada must not allow what had been won in the trenches of Belgium and France to be lost on the plains of Saskatchewan. For all these reasons, the Klan took off like wildfire, signing up an estimated 25,000 members in the province.

One notable event was a huge rally and cross burning outside Moose Jaw on June 7, 1927. An estimated 8,000 people attended the rally. Newspaper reports of the time estimated more than 1,000 automobiles at the scene. On Empire Day, May 24, 1928, crosses burned in communities across the province.

In September 1927, Klan organizers Emmons and Scott fled the province, taking with them money they had collected for membership fees and from the sale of Klan regalia. Emmons was brought back and put on trial for embezzlement, but acquitted because he had acted in accordance with Klan rules.

At this point the Saskatchewan Klan might have collapsed, but instead it restructured itself as a locally run organization. All ties with the American Klan were severed. Robes and hoods, part of Klansmen’s or Klanswomen’s garb, were no longer worn in public.

The new locally run Klan explicitly emphasized that it rejected violence and its main purpose was to keep Canada British and follow constitutional methods to achieve that goal. But cross burnings, verbal attacks on the non-British and explicitly racist pronouncements were, if not physically violent, hateful and deeply intimidating.

Liberal Premier Jimmy Gardiner, continued to attack the Klan, saying that it was an alien American import and that it had left a trail of bloodshed everywhere it went in the U.S. However, he was unable to cite specific instances of bodily violence perpetrated by the Klan in Saskatchewan. Gardiner lost the election of 1929, the first defeat for the Liberals since 1905, partly because of the backlash against his anti-Klan crusade.

Pervasive racism

Gardiner’s own archives are significant textual sources for documenting the Klan in Saskatchewan. Both Gardiner’s collection of newspaper clippings and his correspondence provide insight into this strange and complex history.

Gardiner, who began his career as a teacher and was a Protestant, stood against the Klan’s hateful expression of an idealized exclusive white British Protestant social order.

At the same time, his archives, as well as many other sources, show how there was an atmosphere of accepted racist discourse and legally established stuctural racism. Such laws pertained to and impacted both colonial settler relations with Indigenous peoples and non-British racialized groups.

Gardiner had to walk a line of being anti-Klan: He couldn’t denounce the clan in frankly anti-racist terms, because there was so much racism in the general population including among his own supporters. He mainly denounced them because they had originated in the U.S. and for their blatant hucksterism.

Lest Canadians believe that the Klan was only an American phenomenon, it’s important to critically examine our own histories and legacies — including the many waves of white supremacist activity — and levels and nuances of structural racism.

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

James M. Pitsula does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

PM Trudeau 'disappointed' by RCMP treatment of Sikh officers over mask issue

  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is disappointed that Sikh RCMP officers have been removed from front line policing during the pandemic because their religiously mandated facial hair makes it difficult to properly wear a face covering.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada says officers have been placed on desk duty for almost six months, as the RCMP found the N100 mask does not seal with facial hair.

The organization says no attempt has been made to accommodate Sikh officers with other protective coverings that would work with beards.

Trudeau said Friday that health and safety regulations are extremely important and must be applied in workplaces across the country.

"But I was very disappointed to hear of this issue with the RCMP," he added. "Because I do know that many other police forces and other organizations have figured out ways of upholding health and safety standards without needing to create discrimination against certain individuals because of their religion."

The presence of diverse Canadians in police forces is extremely important for all Canadians, Trudeau said.

"It is something that I certainly hope the RCMP rectifies quickly, and it shouldn't have happened in the first place."

The RCMP had no immediate comment Friday.

Mary-Liz Power, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, the cabinet member responsible for the RCMP, said the minister's office had raised the matter with the Mounties and expected a resolution as quickly as possible.

“All officers must be given equal opportunity to serve their community while practising their faith. They must not experience discrimination based on religion," Power said.

"It is essential for the RCMP to provide necessary personal protective equipment in a timely manner for Sikh officers."

In a statement this week, World Sikh Organization of Canada president Tejinder Singh Sidhu said taking Sikh officers off the front lines constitutes discrimination.

"We have tried for months to assist the affected RCMP officers and advocate on their behalf but with no success and no response from the federal government. The discrimination against bearded Sikh officers must end immediately."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2020.

The Canadian Press

Statistics Canada Reports Record High Level Of Youth Not In School Or Work

Daniel Tencer

© Provided by HuffPost Canada


MONTREAL ― Nearly one in four Canadians under the age of 30 were neither in school or work as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded this spring, Statistics Canada says.

With jobs for youth coming back more slowly than jobs for others, some experts are growing worried Canada could be held back for years as an entire generation struggles to get its feet on the ground.

“Youth who go unemployed for longer periods of time, evidence has shown, have problems further on in life with maintaining employment,” said Tim Lang, president of Toronto charity Youth Employment Services (YES).

“So it’s critical that youth get employment as quickly as they can.”


In a report issued Thursday, Statistics Canada found that 24 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 29 were “NEET” ― not in employment, education or training ― as of April of this year. That’s double the rate in February, before the pandemic.

Among teens, much of this spike was attributed to disrupted classes during the spring lockdowns. But among those in their 20s, massive job losses were behind the sudden spike in idleness, Statistics Canada said.

Between February and April, one out of every three jobs held by this group disappeared, and ― with large parts of the service sector still in lockdown ― they aren’t coming back very quickly.

The jobless rate for youth was 23.4 per cent in August, compared to 10.2 per cent for Canada as a whole.

This reality could have negative consequences for this generation of Canadians for years to come. Research shows that people who experience unemployment early in their career will earn less than they otherwise would for at least a decade, and potentially for their entire lives.

A recent OECD report attempted to estimate what the loss of skills due to the COVID-19 disruption to work and school could cost the economy. In their baseline scenario, the disruption to education reduced the size of the economy by 1.5 per cent permanently. For an economy of Canada’s size, that means hundreds of billions of dollars of unrealized wealth, and a lower standard of living.

Despite the dreary numbers, Lang urges youth to stay focused.

“Now is a chance to re-skill and retrain if you’re out of work through no fault of your own,” Lang told HuffPost Canada.

He applauded Canada’s governments for responding quickly to the jobs crisis, but urged them to do more to raise awareness of programs and organizations ― such as his own ― that help youth find work.

Lang noted ruefully that the WE Charity scandal “gave a bit of a black eye to the non-profit sector,” but noted that there are organizations other than WE out there working to help youth.

The charity he heads, Toronto-based YES, has been training youth to work in cloud computing, boasting a 90-per-cent success rate in placing youth in jobs.
Missed opportunities

Lang has mixed feelings about the government’s income supports, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB).

While the programs helped many stay afloat during the lockdown, they may be harming rehiring at this point, Lang said.

“There are still many businesses who are looking for employees, and many companies said they couldn’t rehire (former employees) because of CERB,” he said.

He worries young Canadians may be missing opportunities on the assumption that there are none right now.

“Believe it or not, even though youth unemployment is so high, there are still jobs to be had,” he said.This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canada.

VANCOUVER BC Hootsuite terminates U.S. ICE contract, after CEO says it 'divided' company

© Provided by The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — Hootsuite says it is terminating a contract it has with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a "broad emotional and passionate" reaction from staff.

The Vancouver-based company's chief executive Tom Keiser broke the news to his staff in an email, where he says that within the last 24 hours he had learned many employees were upset by the company's decision to partner with ICE.

He did not share why staff were concerned, but says the issue created a divided company and is not the kind of business he wanted to lead, so he reversed the decision.

Keiser's letter says the company first proceeded with the contract after holding internal conversations and forming a committee to review the partnership.

Other tech companies have previously faced backlash from staff when considering contracts with ICE, who they allege has been involved with human rights and immigration abuses.

Hundreds of Google employees walked out and signed a petition last year in an effort to stop their company from working with ICE and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which they accused of caging and harming asylum seekers and illegally detaining refugees and U.S. citizens. 

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Hootsuite says in an emailed statement to The Canadian Press that it is taking steps to ensure the termination is completed swiftly.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 24, 2020.

The Canadian Press

After long-term care, Quebec private seniors residences a growing COVID-19 concern
  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — A slow but steady rise of COVID-19 cases in Quebec's private seniors residences in recent weeks is causing concern among experts and authorities, who want to avoid the disaster that befell long-term care homes during the first wave of the novel coronavirus.


As of Wednesday evening, there were 39 private residences in Quebec with 180 COVID-19 cases between them listed on the government's website. Four among them were described as "critical" because more than 25 per cent of their residents were infected.

In comparison, only 20 long-term care homes were listed as having cases. One facility was listed as critical.

Yves Desjardins, the head of a group representing hundreds of seniors residences, says the number of facilities affected and the total number of COVID-19 cases in the network remains low. He said, however, managers are watching the trend carefully.

Unlike the first wave of the virus, which was concentrated in long-term care, the second has the virus spreading throughout the community, according to health officials. Desjardins says community spread poses a risk for people living in seniors residences because they are generally more active than are residents of long-term care homes.

"We have a clientele that is much more autonomous, that move around, families coming to visit, workers coming to the residence," Desjardins said in a recent interview. "The virus is circulating in the community, and we're in the community."

Health Minister Christian Dube has expressed concern about cases appearing in private seniors homes, known as RPAs. On Sept. 15, he tightened health directives in those facilities, mandating that masks be worn in common areas such as hallways and elevators.

"The RPAs, for me, that's our next problem if we're not careful," he said on Sept. 15.

Seniors residences must record the names of guests, who are required to wear masks. Despite the rules, there have been some outbreaks.

The four seniors residences listed as critical are located in the Quebec City area and in the region to its south, called Chaudiere-Appalaches. The RPA called Villa Ste-Rose in Laval, north of Montreal, has seen cases jump from four to 18 in recent days.

Dube said this week that while some cases in seniors residences are unavoidable, public health is contacting each place to ensure infection-control measures are being followed.

Louis Demers, a professor at Quebec's public administration school, known as Ecole nationale d'administration publique, says the province should be concerned.

By raising the salaries of orderlies in long-term care homes, he said the government may have lured people away from the public sector. That attempt to reverse critical staff shortages in long-term care has the potential to increase seniors residences' dependence on employment agencies.

"If your personnel is insufficient, and you have to choose between not giving a woman a bath, or giving one by someone who might have the virus, what do you do?" he said in a recent interview.

A major issue that contributed to hundreds of deaths in long-term care homes in the spring was the fact employees worked in more than one facility, often carrying the virus with them to vulnerable and captive populations.

Desjardins said it's nearly impossible to "100 per cent" ensure staff only work at one residence, especially when some health professionals come in and out to provide services.

He said, however, that owners of residences generally ask staffing agencies to ensure personnel don't rotate between facilities. When it comes to professionals providing medical services, they are asked not to visit multiple places in the same day, he explained.

Both Demers and Desjardins said private seniors residences are better prepared to face a second wave than long-term care homes were prepared to face the first wave of the novel coronavirus last spring.

Owners have a set of clear guidelines explaining which measures to impose based on the alert levels in their regions, covering everything from visitors to cafeteria dining. Infection-control measures are now known and understood, and personal protective equipment such as masks are available, Desjardins said.

Demers said the population in seniors residences are healthier than in long-term care homes and generally live in their own small apartments, which makes distancing easier. They're also less likely to suffer from cognitive problems such as dementia.

He believes the government's biggest challenge when it comes to private seniors homes is to find the right balance of measures that will protect people from the virus while allowing them the social contact that's essential to their mental health.

After witnessing the hardships caused by the restrictive measures placed on seniors homes last spring — such as including banning all visitors and limiting movement — there's little appetite for another lockdown, he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2020.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press