AMELIORATING CAPITALISM

Inequality in capital markets sector continues to hurt women, BIPOC and LGBTQ: report

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM

TORONTO — A culture of inequality continues to persist in Canada's capital markets sector and the brunt of it is felt by women and people who are racialized, Indigenous or identify as LGBTQ2S+, a new report says.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

According to a study of 600 Canadian finance workers conducted by Women in Capital Markets in 2019 and released Wednesday, only half of women believed they are treated equally and have the same access to opportunities as other genders at their firm and just one-third thought their company is free from gender bias and that the promotion process is fair and objective.

Nearly 60 per cent of men said their workplace was free from gender bias, a rate double that of women, and 75 per cent of men believed harassment wasn't an issue at their employer.

"For corporate Canada, we have a lot of work to do and the most frustrating point is how far we have to go with the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour), LGBTQ community and women more generally. We just have miles to go," said Camilla Sutton, the president and chief executive of Women in Capital Markets.

The study revealed that Black women were the least likely to say they were treated equally by their firm and manager, and the least likely to perceive they have equal career opportunities.

They were also most likely to report being afraid for their personal safety at work.

"I don't walk in these women's shoes in the capital market or finance sector, but this really concerns me and it should really concern leaders of such firms that Black women feel this way," said Paulette Senior, the president and chief executive of the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

Data also showed that more than half of people identifying as LGBTQ2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or two-spirited) in Canada's capital markets industry refrained from talking about their personal lives at work for fear of others making assumptions about them, and this group reported the lowest satisfaction with their employer's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.

The report also revealed that concerns over pay disparities in the sector are ongoing.

Only 34 per cent of women surveyed believed they were paid equally to other genders, despite there being equal pay provisions in the Employment Act, Sutton said.

"When I talk to leaders, all of them really authentically guarantee to me that they are paying their women equally and are frustrated by that," she said.

"Maybe it's a perception gap. Maybe it's a realistic representation of the pay gap. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between, (and) the people need to be much more transparent."

Her organization's report provides pages of suggestions for how companies can work toward fixing diversity and inclusion problems.

The recommendations include ensuring pay equity, requiring a diverse slate of candidates when hiring, establishing an ombudsperson office to deal with complaints of harassment and implementing representation targets with clear timelines.

Senior suggested that capital markets firms look at implementing better strategies to eradicate the pay gap, address child or elder care issues their workers face and deal with harassment at the office.

She says now is the time to act because she has heard of women leaving their careers because they're frustrated with a lack of action from companies turning a blind eye to problems.

"Just because you don't see the problem because you're not experiencing it, doesn't mean it does not exist," Senior said.

Sutton is crossing her fingers that these messages are heeded by companies in financial services, who often outperform other sectors when diversity is measured broadly but still have work to do.

She hopes the report will also dispel some myths about women's goals and needs.

The study found women and men are equally ambitious with 67 per cent of both genders saying they aspire to reach the executive level or C-Suite in their careers and 72 per cent of women and 63 per cent of men saying they expect a promotion in the next five years.

When asked to rank the importance in their careers of development opportunities, compensation, title, work/life balance and enjoying their job, 15 per cent of men and 14 per cent of women rank work/life balance as most important — an affront to the common perception that women value family responsibilities more than men.

The study also showed that more than half of men and three-quarters of women believe there are enough qualified women in the talent pool, but almost 25 per cent of men believe a lack of qualified women is the reason their workplace isn't gender balanced.

"I hear repeatedly that 'I'd love to hire women, BIPOC, but I just can't find talent' and I think that the line of thinking really doesn't hold water anymore and we need to push beyond that," she said.

"The talent might not be there but not in the same network as more traditional talent and this is not about lowering the barriers."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 28, 2020.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

Blowin' in the wind: Lost interviews hold new Dylan insights

For nearly half a century, they were blowin' in the wind: lost interviews that contained surprising new insights about celebrated singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Transcripts of the 1971 interviews with the late American blues artist Tony Glover — and letters the two friends exchanged — have surfaced at a Boston auction house. They reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name and wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

Some of the 37 typed pages contain handwritten notes in Dylan's own scrawl, said R.R. Auction, which is selling Glover's trove of Dylan archives. “My work is a moving thing," Dylan scribbled in one spot. Elsewhere, he used a blue marker to strike through passages he evidently didn't like.

“In many cases, the deletions are more telling than the additions," said Bobby Livingston, the auction house's executive vice-president.

Dylan, 79, was close friends with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into music on the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover's widow, Cynthia Nadler, put the documents up for auction, with online bidding to start Nov. 12 and run through Nov. 19.

The reclusive Dylan, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2016 after giving the world “Blowin' in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Times They Are a-Changin'” and other anthems of the '60s, was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota. And his rambling chats with Glover help explain the name change.

A March 22, 1971, conversation began with Dylan joking: “I mean it wouldn’t've worked if I’d changed the name to Bob Levy. Or Bob Neuwirth. Or Bob Doughnut.”

But in handwritten additions, the tone became more serious as Dylan discussed his Jewish identity. “A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants. A lot of people think that all Jews are like that. Well they used to be cause that’s all that was open to them. That’s all they were allowed to do," he wrote.

In the interviews, Dylan also recalled when he famously “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where folk purists in the crowd booed him. “Yeah, it was a strange night,” he said.

There's also a letter Dylan penned in February 1962, a month before he released his debut album, in which he quoted folk legend Woody Guthrie: “Sometimes I feel like a piece of dirt walkin.’"

After visiting Guthrie in May of that year, Dylan penned these lyrics, which have never been made public:

“My eyes are cracked I think I been framed / I can’t seem to remember the sound of my name / What did he teach you I heard someone shout / Did he teach you to wheel & wind yourself out / Did he teach you to reveal, respect, and repent the blues / No Jack he taught me how to sleep in my shoes.”

“Lay Lady Lay” long was said to have been written for the 1969 Oscar-winning movie “Midnight Cowboy,” but Dylan told Glover he wrote it as a tune for Streisand. He didn't elaborate on the nature of their relationship.

The interviews originally were for an article Glover was writing for Esquire magazine, but Dylan lost interest and the piece never was completed, R.R. Auction said.

___

Follow AP New England editor Bill Kole on Twitter at http://twitter.com/billkole.

William J. Kole, The Associated Press

'Homeless Jesus' sculpture goes viral after 911 call

Kaitlin Wynia Baluk, PhD Candidate in Health and Society, McMaster University 


Recently, a life-size bronze sculpture of Jesus, called Homeless Jesus, went viral after someone made a 911 call about a homeless man on a bench. The bronze sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz depicts Jesus, identifiable by the wounds on his feet, sleeping on a street bench wrapped in a blanket.

© (Kaitlin Wynia Baluk) 'Homeless Jesus' at Newman College in Melbourne, Australia.

With replicas located in prominent urban locations, such as Buenos Aires, Capernaum, New York, Madrid, Melbourne, Rome and Singapore, Homeless Jesus now dots the globe. There are six replicas in Canada alone.

On Oct. 12, 20 minutes after a replica of the sculpture was installed at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Bay Village, Ohio, a community member called the emergency department, mistaking it for a person in need. Saturday Night Live lampooned this story in a skit on their Oct. 17 show.

© (Saturday Night Live) ‘Homeless Jesus’ 911 call appeared on ‘Saturday Night Live’ on Oct. 17, 2020.

But this is not the first time the statue made headlines.

In 2013, news outlets told a rags-to-riches story: how this sculpture was rejected by prominent churches, only to be requested and blessed by Pope Francis.

In 2018, news outlets covered its presence as it “stopped a runaway dump truck from crashing into pedestrians.”

I have spent the past two years looking at the news coverage of this religious public artwork to try and figure out why both faith-based organizations and secular media are fascinated by it. I examined interviews with faith leaders at organizations with a Homeless Jesus and online news articles that reference it.

Religious viewers

Regardless of one’s religiosity, viewers are captivated by the image of a Jesus as a homeless figure. For faith-based organizations, Homeless Jesus is a symbol that communicates and teaches viewers about core Christian beliefs.

Schmalz produced this sculpture as part of a series that visually depicts a passage from the Bible found in the Gospel of Matthew 25:35-45. Here, Jesus tells his followers that they are caring for him when they tend to the needs of those who are sick, poor, naked, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned and strangers.

For those familiar with the story of Jesus, the sculpture’s message may appear ostensibly obvious. Yet the sculpture asks them to take this message literally and to pay attention to the dignity of those less privileged.

Likewise, those on the margins of society may feel comforted by the notion that Jesus (considered by some to be the Son of God, and by others, a wise prophet) identifies with their situations.

Faith-based organizations that install a Homeless Jesus replica say they choose to do so because they want to make a bold public statement about their social convictions.

Secular viewers

Despite an unfamiliarity with or ambivalence toward the story of Jesus, Homeless Jesus may still resonate with secular and non-Christian viewers. The sculpture presents symbols with universal meanings: a street bench and a body trying to say warm, wrapped in blanket. These symbols say something about physical vulnerability in a public space. When combined, they become an icon of homelessness.

© (Kaitlin Wynia Baluk) ‘When I was Hungry and Thirsty’ by Timothy Schmalz at St. Stephen in the Fields in Kensington Market, Toronto, Ont.

Bronze sculptures are often reserved for historic monuments and statues of community heroes. When this medium is combined with an image of homelessness, it generates a clear and powerful message. The unusual combination asks viewers to see those who are homeless as people with dignity, worthy of being sculpted. At the very least: they are worthy of safe and affordable housing.

This sculpture is a challenge to the dominant tendency to ignore the needs and stories of people who are homeless. The homeless population is often perceived as “natural losers” in a competitive market economy. Capitalism justifies the presence of extreme poverty in affluent societies. Homeless Jesus presents an alternative narrative.
Religious art can communicate insight

Homeless Jesus, and its spot in the limelight, demonstrates how religious public art can play a role in promoting the ideas of an equitable society.

Back in the ‘70s, critical theorist, Herbert Marcuse, said art can oppose oppressive ways of thinking, behaving and speaking. As a scholar who left Germany shortly before the onset of the Second World War, Marcuse understood the horrors that arise when a population uncritically serves the interests of the elite.

According to Marcuse, art that offers alternative perspectives and challenges social norms, can create spaces where people can identify and question oppressive social systems.

Jürgen Habermas, another key critical theorist who is still active writing and theorising today, proposed that although religion can be prescriptive, it can also provide an alternative perspective on social reality. He said religious and secular citizens should be willing to learn from one another.

Habermas suggested that at formal levels of political decision making, religious individuals should work to translate their ideas into a language that their secular counterparts find accessible.

Homeless Jesus exemplifies how religious public art can communicate a religious belief in a manner that is respectful of and intelligible to a diverse secular audience. Religious public art can be an avenue for faith-based organizations to meaningfully contribute to the bettering of social life.

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

Kaitlin Wynia Baluk 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.

Why all human rights depend on a healthy environment

David R Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights & environment and Associate Professor of Law, Policy and Sustainability, University of British Columbia 2 days ago

© (AP Photo/Jane Hahn) Rising sea levels are threatening homes on Diamniadio Island, Saloum Delta in Senegal. A child stands outside a home's former kitchen, surrounded by mangrove branches, in 2015.

Recent revelations about the speed and scale of nature’s decline are hard to truly comprehend. Not since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago has the diversity and abundance of life on Earth plunged so precipitously.

For decades, governments have signed treaties and made pledges to halt the damage to our biosphere, notably the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. In retrospect, it’s an embarrassing litany of bold rhetoric, timid action and broken promises.

The recent Global Biodiversity Outlook-5 reveals that none of the 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which provided nations with the targets for the protection of species and habitats, were achieved by 2020.

Yet all human rights ultimately depend on a healthy biosphere. Among the human rights being threatened and violated by the ecosystem degradation and the decline of biodiversity are the rights to life, health, food, a healthy environment, water, an adequate standard of living and culture.

Healthy ecosystems save lives

Without functioning ecosystems, which depend on healthy biodiversity, there would be no clean air to breathe, safe water to drink or nutritious food to eat. Healthy ecosystems also regulate the Earth’s climate, filter air and water, recycle nutrients and mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

Read more: How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to viruses

Perhaps the most conspicuous example is COVID-19, a pandemic that has caused more than one million deaths and is the latest emerging infectious disease to spill over into humans from another species. Evidence is mounting that the growing risk of these diseases is caused by human actions that damage ecosystems and biodiversity.

© (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Cyclone Kenneth struck Ibo Island, Mozambique, in May 2019, flattening communities and contaminating drinking water wells.

Healthy ecosystems provide a buffer against emerging infectious diseases, safeguarding the right to health. Communities protected by healthy mangrove ecosystems are less likely to suffer deaths caused by cyclones, protecting the right to life. Insects, bats and birds pollinate more than 75 per cent of crops, essential for fulfilling the right to food.
The vital role for human rights

Scientists’ warnings have never been more dire or more clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services are calling for rapid, systemic and transformative changes to address the global environmental crisis.

That’s why there is a vital role for human rights. Historically, rights have served as catalysts for societal transformations, including the abolition of slavery, equality for women and the end of apartheid. Rights are being strategically employed by Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ individuals and persons with disabilities to reduce discrimination, increase opportunities and improve their quality of life. It’s never easy, but human rights undoubtedly have sparked positive transformative changes.

Rights are being used increasingly in efforts to address the planetary environmental emergency. Last year the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, in the Urgenda case, ruled that the Dutch government violated the rights of its citizens under the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to take sufficiently ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The court ordered the government to make faster and deeper emissions cuts.

Read more: What a Dutch Supreme Court decision on climate change and human rights means for Canada

Similar cases are popping up all over the world. The Torres Strait Islanders filed a case against Australia with the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that Australia’s abysmal record on climate change violates their rights to life, health and culture. Greta Thunberg and 15 other youths have filed a similar case at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, asserting that inadequate climate action violates their rights.
The right to a healthy environment

Another encouraging development is the emergence of the right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment. Portugal and Spain were the first countries to put this right in their constitutions, in 1976 and 1978 respectively. The right to a healthy environment first appeared in regional human rights treaties with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in 1981 and the San Salvador Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in 1988.

Today, the right to a healthy environment is recognized by more than 80 per cent of the UN’s member states (156 out of 193). Canada and the United States do not, although some of the provinces, territories and states recognize the right to a healthy environment in their legislation or constitutions.

In countries where the rule of law is in good shape, the right to a healthy environment has led to stronger environmental laws and policies, higher levels of public participation in environmental decision-making and most importantly, improved environmental performance.

© (AP Photo/Andre Penner) Land recently burned and deforested by cattle farmers stands empty near Canutama in Amazonas state, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2019.

The Supreme Court of Colombia issued a globally important decision that addresses both the climate emergency and the nature crisis. In response to a lawsuit filed by 25 children and youth, the court ruled that deforestation in the Colombian portion of the Amazon rainforest violates their right to a healthy environment. The court ordered the government to meet with the young people and leading scientists to develop a plan to rapidly end deforestation.
It’s not too late, but time is running out

With COVID-19, humanity is paying a terrible price for ignoring scientists’ warnings. We must not make the same mistake again.

States must take a rights-based approach to urgent action in four key and interrelated areas:

adopting carbon neutral and nature positive economic recovery plans,
targeting the key drivers of zoonotic diseases,

scaling-up measures to protect and conserve nature,

respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, rural and local communities.

If we fail to employ a rights-based approach to protecting the biosphere, future generations will live in an ecologically impoverished world, deprived of nature’s critical contributions to human well-being, ravaged by increasingly frequent pandemics and riven by deepening environmental injustices.

If we place human rights and nature at the heart of sustainable development, humans could attain a just and sustainable future in which people live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives in harmony with nature on this beautiful but beleaguered blue-green planet.

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

David R Boyd receives funding from SSHRC, the Open Society Foundation, and the University of British Columbia. He is affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which appointed him as the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment in 2018.

 

Domestic Violence Is About Power & Control

It’s Also A Tool Of Voter Suppression

As November 3 approaches, the calls for people to vote are reaching a crescendo. There’s a clear narrative around the importance of exercising your right to go to the polls, vote by mail, or even volunteer this election. And, with so many swing states in play, individual votes really do count, and the stakes are sky-high: We are fighting for nothing less than the preservation and expansion of the rights of the most marginalized communities in this country.

But blanket calls to “vote at all costs” often overlook important context: Not everyone can vote. There are many reasons, aside from legal ones, that people might be disenfranchised and therefore unable to exercise their right to vote. A major one that isn’t talked about nearly enough is the way that intimate partner violence can impact someone’s ability to vote in elections, both during the relationship and after it ends.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one in four women will experience abuse at the hands of a partner, and The Network/La Red estimates that 25-33 percent of LGBTQ+ people will experience abuse by an intimate partner. At its foundation, domestic violence is about power and control: an abuser seeks to establish dominance over someone through tactics of physical, emotional, and/or sexual violence. That can extend into all areas of life, including one place where people can reliably demonstrate their agency: the voting booth.

“Voting is an act of power, which is why abusers often seek to interfere with victims exercising their right to vote,” says Adrienne Lawrence, an attorney and former domestic violence counselor who has also been a repeated election official. In particular, she says, that “women seeking to vote have faced retaliation for nearly a century where husbands objected to [them] exercising their right to vote.”

For someone who is currently in an abusive relationship, there are many complex reasons why they might not be able to vote — or even want to. They could be being actively controlled or monitored by their abuser, or simply disempowered from years of psychological abuse. Tactics used by abusers can include isolation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, and controlling behaviors. The way that can manifest around access to the democratic process can be an abuser withholding relevant information related to election dates or locations by throwing out mail, or berating their partner until they think they aren’t smart enough to vote. It can be not allowing them to leave the house to go vote or stranding them without access to transportation, or coercing them into voting the way their abuser wants them to.

Survivors who exist at multiple axes of oppression can find even more barriers to voting. For example, in communities with large numbers of immigrants, often with limited English proficiency like in the Asian-Pacific Islander community, “trying to get information about when and how to vote or who to vote for is much more easily monitored by an abuser, especially if an abuser speaks English and the survivor does not, and candidates haven’t done a good job of doing outreach in multiple languages,” Grace Huang, Director of Policy at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, tells Refinery29.

Tawni Maisonneuve has experienced several of these barriers, telling Supermajority News that she “stopped registering to vote” during her first marriage because the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband made her “feel as if [she wasn’t] even intelligent enough to vote.” Maisonneuve said her partner controlled how she voted by telling poll workers she was “slow” so he needed to help her with her ballot. After leaving their abusers, many survivors may still not feel they have a right to show up to the polls, because the scars of abuse can last long after a relationship has ended.

But there are other, more concrete reasons for survivors not to vote: Many fear for their safety if they register. Registering to vote requires giving your address and personal information, which will then become a public record. If an abuser is someone who surveils, threatens, or stalks their victim after they have left the relationship, they could potentially look up their address in voter registration databases to find them.

“Fun fact: as a DV survivor I cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public,” wrote Twitter user @IndigenousAI. “Anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug.”

In a state that requires someone to show up in person to vote, a survivor could be putting their safety at-risk by going to the polls. “Especially as we are hearing about people standing in line for hours on end, which poses another risk for people separated from their abusers,” says Huang. “We are hearing about counties where there is only one place to drop off ballots or only one polling place. The fact that you’re having to stand in line potentially puts people at risk who may be hiding from their abusers.”

Most states have Address Confidentiality Programs that allow survivors of intimate partner violence to keep their home address out of public records (Georgia, Michigan, and Hawaii are exceptions). However, there are a lot of hoops people have to jump through in order to qualify. For example, in New York state, there is a law that allows survivors to obtain a court order in the county where they are registered to vote to have their registration kept separate. This law also allows survivors who fear for their safety to be excused from going in person to their polling place, if they are worried their abuser might be waiting for them there. In order to apply for the exception, however, requires a court order to be acquired and brought to the Board of Elections.

Even more restrictive is the law in New Jersey, which only applies to people who have filed a restraining order and have documented proof of their abuse. There are countless reasons that victims choose not to file restraining orders against or call the police on their abusers, which include fear and threats.

“Some ways in which an abuser may obstruct or influence a victim’s right to vote would meet the definition of voter intimidation under 18 U.S.C. § 594,” says Lawrence. “Unfortunately, voter intimidation is unlikely to be charged because intimidation is often subtle and undocumented. Also, survivors often are reluctant to testify against their abusers, making prosecution even more difficult.”

When people are kept from exercising their right to vote because of fear of discrimination or abuse, it is a form of voter suppression. “The pandemic means we’re all in closer quarters, meaning abusers have more access and control over their victims,” Ruth Glenn, President of the NCADV, told Supermajority News. It has also meant an increase in domestic violence. “Given that domestic violence has increased during COVID-19, Black women face domestic violence at higher rates, and Black women are a strong voting bloc, you would think the candidates would do more to remove the voting barriers a number of Black domestic violence survivors face,” said Lawrence.

In order to mitigate some of those barriers to voting for survivors of domestic violence, Lawrence suggests policies that could help improve access, like statewide programs that preserve voter information privacy and remove barriers of entry to such programs; political information websites adding escape buttons to their webpages that enable prospective voters to close out of the webpage immediately and without detection; election official training on spotting voter intimidation and potential domestic violence situations; and voter registration programs at women’s centers and shelters.

What it comes down to is the fact that the system is failing survivors of intimate partner violence, thereby suppressing their ability to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. “When it comes to voting,” Lawrence admits, “domestic violence can create a host of hurdles imposed both by an abuser and by the system.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
Behind The Racist History Of The Electoral College

How teachers' union activism helped shift the U.S. election debate on education 

AND IT'S IMPORTANCE IN CANADA

Rachel K. Brickner, Professor of Politics, Acadia University

In the fight for the U.S. presidency, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has positioned protecting students, educators and getting schools open safely with smaller classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “a national emergency.” On Sept. 2, he praised educators for their “grit,” and recognized their concerns for students

.

© (AP Photo/ Matt Slocum) Teacher activism in the U.S. has helped pushed the Democratic party towards renewed investment in public education. Children listen as former president Barack Obama campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Oct. 21, 2020, in Philadelphia.

Biden’s praise reflects his kindergarten to Grade 12 education plan, which calls on the federal government to “provide educators the support and respect they need and deserve” to and “start investing in our children at birth.”

In both tone and content, Biden’s plan represents an evolution in the focus of American education policy and a departure from recent commitments of Democratic and Republican parties emphasizing school accountability through testing and expanding publicly funded, privately operated charter schools.

Read more: Charter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta

In Canada, the challenges of reopening schools during COVID-19 have prompted suggestions that it’s time to think about “school choice” through charter schools or through school voucher programs. Voucher programs provide parents with government grants, normally taken out of the general public school budget, that they can use for tuition at a private school.

As I have argued, Canadians should not ignore American experiences of expanding such kinds of schooling.

Heavier federal role

In the U.S., states are primarily responsible for education policy. But the federal secretary of education establishes policies on federal financial aid for education and distributes and monitors related funds, as well as collecting data, disseminating research and ensuring schools from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate institutions “comply with federal … laws governing funding and discrimination.” The federal government began to play a role in kindergarten to Grade 12 education with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

The act provided federal funding to states to support school districts with concentrations of poor students. The ESEA has to be reauthorized every five years, and subsequent presidents have expanded its scope through changes: for instance, to provide resources for educating students with disabilities or to address perceived challenges like gaps in student achievement.

In the late 1980s, concerns over student achievement led to the emergence of an education reform movement. This movement emphasized standardized testing to hold schools accountable when students didn’t make adequate academic progress and the expansion of school choice through publicly funded, privately operated charter schools.
Fractures in U.S. ‘education reform’

Support for education reform was bipartisan in the U.S. Beginning in 1988, presidents used reauthorizations of the ESEA to emphasize greater accountability. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama went farthest to mandate testing and support charter schools.

Since the late ‘80s, presidents have been careful not to explicitly attack the teaching profession. But some state and local politicians (particularly Republicans) were quick to place the blame for so-called failing schools on teachers’ unions. Some media then followed suit, focusing coverage on “bad teachers.” This dismissal of professional educators’ expertise, combined with cuts to education budgets, created openings for philanthropists to influence policy

.

© (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Teachers, parents and students line up to protest for higher school funding and teacher pay in April 2018 in Phoenix before a teacher strike.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden and other candidates distanced themselves from education reform priorities and called for renewed investment in public education after decades of austerity.

My research into their platforms shows explicit support for raising teachers’ salaries, collective bargaining and equitable educational opportunities for all students.

Biden and many Democratic candidates have close personal connections to public education: Jill Biden, for example, has a doctorate in education and teaches at a community college. But the shift among Democrats is also a response to the rise of education activism in the U.S. over the past decade, led by a more militant teachers’ union movement. It’s had some success refocusing public attention on what students and teachers need to succeed.

A decade of education activism

The Chicago Teachers’ Union’s (CTU) three-week strike in 2012 was a watershed moment. The CTU developed a bargaining platform, “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” focused on student needs for a well-rounded curriculum, support services and fully funded schools.

To generate support for the platform and a possible strike, CTU leadership organized members and built relationships with parents, neighbourhood organizations and faith groups. Other teachers’ unions adopted CTU’s method of focusing demands on how schools ought to care for the whole student.

After the CTU strike, the movement against high-stakes standardized testing gained momentum. Critics drew attention to instructional time lost to testing, how testing narrowed the academic curriculum and problems using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools.

Moratorium on expanding charter schools

In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools until they were subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools. Despite criticism for this stance voiced by some education advocates in Black communities, the NAACP renewed this call in 2017.

Teachers’ activism reached a high point in 2018, when over 375,000 educators took part in work stoppages. Teachers went on strike in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina.

With broad public support, they demanded restoring funding to reverse declining wages and student resources and cuts to curriculum. When United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) went on strike in 2019 for “The Schools L.A. Children Deserve,” a major concern was the impact of charter schools on funding for traditional public school schools.

Among UTLA’s supporters were Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — all eventual contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Why Canadians should care

Expanding charter schools and school vouchers, along with pressuring schools to accelerate standardized testing haven’t been a silver bullet for fixing problems in American public schools.

Rather, they contributed to the rise of a robust movement of educators, teachers’ unions and community and political allies who support a well-resourced public school system that both meets the needs of diverse students and values educators as professionals.

Read more: School funding is needed for student well-being, not only coronavirus safety rules

Canada has a long history of teachers’ union activism. Teachers in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Ontario have engaged in job actions since 2014.

As COVID-19 pressures provinces to re-think schooling, and as teachers’ unions continue to underscore the perils of underfunding for both teacher and student health and wellness, we should watch to see if the activism of Canadian educators and allies becomes even more dynamic.

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

Rachel K. Brickner has received funding from the Harrison-McCain Foundation. She has been a member of Educators for Social Justice-Nova Scotia and is currently the Chair of Democrats Abroad-Atlantic Provinces.

Review: Why small farms need a reordering of our society

© Provided by The Canadian Press

“A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth,” by Chris Smaje (Chelsea Green)

With the possible exception of parks, perhaps no use of the land is viewed more favourably in America than a small farm. It’s encompasses all the values and myths we hold holy — seemingly pollution-free stewardship of the land, green vistas of vibrant crops, and contented animals munching grass.

If only the realities and economics of small farming were so engaging.


The vast scope and power of corporate agriculture presents ferocious competition; studies show half of small farmers depend on a second job to stay solvent.

Chris Smaje explains in “A Small Farm Future" how small farms can become profitable — it merely will take a near complete reordering of our society.

Smaje threw his research net wide for this book, citing population growth, climate change, conflicting economic theories and outdated politics in concluding the labour-intensive, small-scale agriculture he advocates can work.

Forget any multi-tasking when you are reading this book —you’ll get lost in equations he creates to show the flow of commodities and money and how the world can change to embrace small farms.

Smaje offers a solution for small farms on a macro-economic/political scale; the aspiring small farmer will not find much here to help make the venture profitable.

“A Small Farm Future” joins a barnful of books and articles in recent years on small farming, a romance with the land that has eluded profitability.

However, several factors may hasten Smaje’s farm revolution, at least in the United States:

— Climate change, which will render some of our current farmlands too hot, too dry, or both.

— The diminishing water table in California’s central and Salinas valleys, where most of America’s salads originate in industrial-scale farms.

— Washing away of the topsoil in the Great Plains, the result of corn and soybean monocultures and failure to plant cover crops, such as clover, in the winter to hold the soil in place when it rains.

— In California, a failure of the winter rains, and conversely, deluges in the central states, surely will elevate the urgency of an alternative agriculture discussion.

If those factors are not enough to ignite a shift to more sustainable small farms, consider this statistic: Federal payments to farmers are expected to reach a record $46 billion this year, the New York Times reported earlier this month. That’s about 40 per cent of total farm income.

As Smaje writes: “It’s clear that present ways of doing politics, economics and agriculture in much of the world are reaching the end of the line.”

Jeff Rowe, The Associated Press

Female football star sues for schools to offer girls' teams

SALT LAKE CITY — Sam Gordon's staggering football skills made her famous at age 9. But they didn't make her fully welcome on the field.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

As the only girl in a tackle football league in Utah, she heard parents from opposing teams urge their kids to “beat the girl.”

“I had a target on my back, and it was in the shape of a ponytail,” said Gordon, now 17. “It was awesome to prove to them that I’m more than just a girl in pads. I’m actually a football player.”

Viral videos viewed by millions of her playing catapulted Gordon to a place in the country’s most popular sport, including the ESPN awards and Super Bowl commercials. But very few other women have gotten a toehold in football.

To help change that, Gordon went to court.

She sued her school district and two others for refusing to create a girls' football program under Title IX, saying many girls like her don't feel comfortable playing with boys and some are even harassed. One player who testified said she was forced to change in the boys’ locker room at away games and often faced discriminatory treatment by her male coach and teammates.

But plenty of girls want to play, Gordon said, pointing to an all-female league she started with her father six years ago that's drawn hundreds of girls from the Salt Lake City area.

The districts and state athletic officials are pushing back in court, though. They argue a girls football program would be unsustainable and require new infrastructure they shouldn't be responsible for.

Closing arguments are set for this week. The school districts and state athletics association either declined or didn't respond to requests for comment.

Gordon's push to expand access to the sport to more women comes as concerns about youth and professional football players getting injured has reached a fever pitch. She said the league has made minor adjustments to prioritize safety such as removing punt returns, kickoffs and kick returns from the game to limit plays that can often result in injuries.

Jen Welter became the first woman in an NFL mentoring program for coaches when she joined the Arizona Cardinals' training camp coaching staff in 2015. This year, there are eight female assistant coaches in the league, including the San Francisco 49ers' Katie Sowers who became the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl last year.

Football is considered “America’s game," but it is one of few sports that doesn’t have gender parity at any level, from the peewees to the pros, in terms of opportunity or compensation, Welter said.

“For a girl to play on a boys team, she is the exception,” Welter said. “Yet when you see a women’s tackle team or a girls' tackle team they’re all in it together. We encourage that in all sports so why would football be so different?”

Some other opportunities for girls who want to play football are starting to open up. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and the NFL announced in May that women’s flag football will become a nationally recognized college varsity sport by 2021. That opportunity could be life changing for young girls and their path toward receiving a college education, Welter said.

“That changes everything,” she said. “Because now that we’ve seen life trajectory changing opportunities in football, that means it’s a viable dream and goal.”

Even if Gordon wins her lawsuit, she may not get a chance to play for her school under the Friday night lights. She's a high school senior now, so she'd get one spring season at best.

But even if she doesn’t get to play with her school's jersey, she said, the lawsuit would still be worth it for the girls who come after her.

“For them to get the opportunity to go and play and to ... destigmatize girls playing contact sports and being tough and rowdy,” she said. “It’s more than just football, and I would be proud to be a part of that.”

___

Sophia Eppolito is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Sophia Eppolito, The Associated Press

Canada dry? Cannabis-infused drinks fizzle due to production, distribution challenges

By Shariq Khan 

© Reuters/Charles Platiau FILE PHOTO: Cans of Cannabis energy drink which contains real hemp seed extract are seen at the food exhibition Sial in Villepinte, near Paris

(Reuters) - Investors pinning hopes on cannabis-infused drinks to propel growth of the legal marijuana industry may have to wait a bit longer, as companies struggle to produce and distribute the highly-sought beverages in a profitable way.

Nearly eleven months after regulators allowed their sales, very few brands have been able to reach shelves.

Canada at the start of this year allowed sales of so-called Cannabis 2.0 products, which include edibles, vapes and drinks. The products have been a big hit with customers during coronavirus-induced lockdowns, but producers have struggled to maintain timelines for the launch of the THC beverages.

Analysts and industry insiders had eagerly anticipated these beverages, hoping they would attract large swathes of the public to pot from booze, and bring back investor dollars after the industry fell out of favor due to a lack of profitability.

Common production challenges include short shelf-life, maintaining a consistent taste, inconsistent potency, and the length of time it takes to achieve the desired "high," said Karan Wadhera, managing partner at cannabis venture capital firm Casa Verde Capital.

"There are also high production costs, expensive distribution, and a lack of dispensary infrastructure to intake and display the products," he added, referring to cannabis shops without loading docks or refrigerators.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made funds even more scarce for a sector that has disappointed the market with missed financial targets and many producers forced to withdraw dollars from developmental products that promise future profits to focus on maintaining the core business."This is certainly true of Canadian LPs (licensed producers) who have had massive layoffs and reductions of production," said Medical Marijuana Inc Chief Executive Stuart Titus.

"The drop-off in investor capital has also had a negative effect on product development, so the supply of effective cannabis-based beverages remains relatively small," he added.

GETTING IT RIGHT

Technical issues involving basic chemistry have also slowed bringing some of these THC-infused beverages to market.

Most cannabinoids are insoluble in water, explained Joshua Swider, co-founder and CEO of Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs (InfiniteCAL).

To overcome that issue, companies use emulsions. But even if they can make an emulsion that gets the high-inducing cannabinoids to properly mix with the beverage, maintaining that mix is itself a challenge.

InfiniteCAL said its tests show some beverages can degrade in as little as a few days, leaving the THC that induces the desired high stuck to the can liner lowering the drink's potency.

"Everyone has really great ideas in this market, but people are coming to find that actually executing the idea is much more difficult," said Narmin Jarrous, vice president at Exclusive Brands, a Michigan-based cannabis retailer.Despite facing its own challenges and delays putting beverages on the shelves, Canopy Growth Corp , the largest pot producer by market value, has established a strong foothold.

The company had planned to launch its drinks in January, when sales were first authorized in Canada, but scaling up production and other issues delayed their introduction.

With backing from Corona beer-maker Constellation Brands Inc , Canopy's products did hit the market in March, well before major rivals got there. It now controls more than 70% of the cannabis-infused drinks market, a company spokeswoman said.

The company has sold close to 2 million cans of its THC-infused beverages in Canada since March. The top three cannabis beverages in Canada are all Canopy products, the spokeswoman added.

CEO David Klein, a Constellation veteran who took on the top role at Canopy in December, told investors in August the company expected to double its drinks output for that month after having already doubled it the previous month.The company announced plans this month to begin selling the products in the United States next summer, initially launching THC-beverages in the fast-growing California and Illinois markets through a partnership with New York-based Acreage Holdings Inc .

"Given the choice of a traditional alcoholic beverage and a THC-infused beverage, I believe that THC beverages would rival alcoholic beverages for their popularity with consumers," Titus said.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Denny Thomas and Bill Berkrot)

ANTI MIGRANT NATIONALISM

Quebec suspends private refugee sponsorships by organizations for one year

MONTREAL — Quebec is suspending all private refugee sponsorships by organizations because it says it has serious concerns with the integrity of the program.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The province said Wednesday that until November 2021, only groups of two to five people can privately sponsor a refugee.

All larger organizations including church groups and non-profits that have privately sponsored refugees for years are shut out of the program for the next 12 months.

The government published its decision in the Official Gazette and did not give details other than saying it had serious concerns about the integrity of certain practices within the framework of the program.

Quebec's Immigration Department said in an emailed statement Wednesday it received "serious allegations" regarding the program.

"Investigations are ongoing and we will not be commenting further to avoid harming their progress."

Paul Clarke, executive director of Action Refugies Montreal, a non-profit that has sponsored refugees to Quebec since the 1990s, called the government's decision unfortunate.

Clarke said legitimate organizations such as his have been put under a cloud of suspicion following the suspension. He said it's unfair to punish his group for the alleged mistakes of others.

"They are using a sledgehammer when they should be using surgical tools," Clarke said in an interview Wednesday, in reference to the Immigration Department.

Quebec's decision to suspend private refugee sponsorships from organizations does not reduce the number of refugees who can apply to immigrate to the province.

Clarke said the government has allowed about 750 applications for the last couple of years and will do so for 2021.

The published public order says the government has "serious concerns about the integrity of certain practices of legal persons within the framework" of the private refugee sponsorship program.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2020.

Giuseppe Valiante, The Canadian Press