BC First Nation company explores feasibility of waste-to-energy facility in northern interior

Nearly two years after Canfor shut down its sawmill in Vavenby, B.C., a respected First Nations-owned resource company is exploring the possibility of a new waste-to-energy facility to take its place. 

“We started thinking, is there something that we should look into that might create a different environment, a different buzz?” said Al Chorney, CEO of Simpcw Resources Group. “And with forestry taking it on the chin, decade after decade, one has to look at the region through a different lens.”

About 187 direct jobs were lost when Canfor closed its Vavenby sawmill in 2019, along with about twice as many associated jobs, said Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell, whose council presides over the 700-member community of Vavenby as well.

“The whole logging economy in the valley suffered after Canfor went away,” Blackwell said.

Vavenby is located in the Thompson Valley, about 110 km north of Kamloops. The territory of Simpcw First Nation, which owns Simpcw Resources, spans 5 million hectares, from just north of Kamloops, to east of Jasper and northwest to Kakwa Park.

“The ultimate goal is to serve the needs of the Thompson Valley communities, while the net benefit is providing a renewable energy source,” said Chorney of the waste conversion concept.

The concept, as currently envisioned, would divert plastics, construction and demolition debris, municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, and agricultural and forestry materials, among other things, from the landfill and convert it to clean thermal and electrical energy.

Simpcw Resources, which oversees forestry, aggregates, pipeline maintenance, construction and more for Simpcw First Nation, didn’t originally intend to pursue a major new business. Initially, the goal was to find a replacement for Canfor, a foundational customer to anchor the industrial park, and draw other tenants.

But attracting a new medium, or large, business to the valley was difficult.

“One of the challenges that the region's faced is that there are limitations as to how one might develop a new industry or create that environment that actually serves to attract new industry,” Chorney said.

So the company considered the situation from another perspective. If they couldn’t attract outside interest, maybe they’d have to prove the opportunity themselves; maybe Simpcw Resources would be the anchor tenant.

The company chose a ‘clean energy’ business concept that would convert municipal, industrial, and other waste into power, wastewater, thermal heat, and natural gas.

“We're looking at diverting those potential landfill materials into something that really generates a long lasting benefit,” said Chorney.

With the help of an engineering firm, Simpcw Resources considered processes proven elsewhere to determine which would best serve the type of waste currently in the valley, he said.

Next, Simpcw Resources will apply to the provincial government for funding of a feasibility study. Both the Clearwater and Valemount councils have expressed support for the study.

Valemount Mayor Owen Torgerson is interested, both for its landfill waste diversion and heat generation potential.

“You see examples of this in South Korea, Sweden; they're not reinventing the wheel here,” Torgerson said.

“From a geothermal standpoint, there are over 50 global examples of how waste heat can be better utilized,” said Torgerson, whose own administration is seeking Federal Government funding for a deep bore-hole geothermal heating project.

Could a waste management facility in the Thompson Valley provide some part of a solution for his community?

Torgerson isn’t sure, but he’s hopeful.

Valemount waste is trucked three hours to Prince George for disposal. Vavenby is half that distance away.

Many questions remain, but still, it’s exciting, he said.

“Anything that doesn't have to go on a truck and has value, versus, a cost and a dumping fee, that does change the economics of even simple garbage here,” said Clearwater Mayor Blackwell, whose own community’s refuse is hauled 1.5 hours away, twice a week.

Even so, it’s too early to draw any conclusions, Blackwell said.

“The evolution of the project can take you in a completely different direction, but you need to crack the door open and start looking at it. That's where they're at right now,” he said.

“The Simpcw have a pretty good track record with their resources company in terms of responsibility and being a good corporate citizen in the valley,” said Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar. “So, them trying to advance and look at something to see if it's even feasible makes sense.”

Typically, any type of project like this would require a fair amount of study, Milobar said. “Given how entrepreneurial the resources company seems to be, it doesn't surprise me that they'd be looking at other opportunities to try to bring more economic benefit to their people, as well as, the whole valley.”

There's a growing global trend to change the landfill mindset and shift the paradigm a little bit through technology, said Chorney.

“We're no experts yet,” he said, “but we hope to learn enough to determine whether we're on the right track or not.”

Fran@thegoatnews.ca / @FranYanor

Fran Yanor, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Rocky Mountain Goat

83% of Americans agree COVID-10 relief and minimum wage should be separate: poll

83% of Americans say $7.25 minimum wage is not enough: poll

Jessica Smith
·Chief Political Correspondent
Wed, February 3, 2021

GO HERE FOR CHARTS AND VIDEO

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/video/83-americans-agree-covid-10-163501254.html

Americans overwhelmingly agree the federal minimum wage should be increased, but many people think it should be considered separately from the next COVID-19 relief bill, according to new findings from Yahoo Finance and the Harris Poll.

President Joe Biden is pushing to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of his $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, but it has proven to be one of the most controversial pieces of the proposal. Republicans have rejected the idea and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Virg.) – a key moderate vote for Democrats – said he doesn’t support a $15 minimum wage either. Manchin said a minimum wage of $11 an hour would be more appropriate in West Virginia.

The last federal minimum wage increase was in 2009. In 2017, 80.4 million workers age 16 and older were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.3% of all wage and salary workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Most Americans support raising the minimum wage

When asked what is the highest minimum wage they would support, most people chose the range of $10-$15 an hour. Thirty-five percent — the largest share of respondents — said they’d support between $13-$15 an hour, 29% would support $10-$12 and 13% would back a hike to more than $15 an hour (which Congress is not considering).

Six percent of respondents said the minimum wage should be higher than current levels, but below $10 an hour. Three percent of respondents said they would actually lower the minimum wage. $15 an hour was the median answer.


In an interview before the survey was taken, Rep. Bobby Scott (D., Virg.) told Yahoo Finance the public largely supports the wage increase. He pointed to the states, including Republican states, like Florida, that have recently voted to raise the minimum wage. Scott has led efforts to raise the minimum wage in the House, and re-introduced the Raise the Wage Act last week. The House passed the bill last year, but the Senate never took it up.

“The only resistance, only pushback appears to be Republicans in Congress. I think many of them in the Senate that have been hiding behind Leader McConnell killing it by just not bringing it up,” said Scott. “Now we have an opportunity to vote on it when Leader Schumer brings it up for a vote, and you have a lot of Republicans who are in states who have indicated by either polling or on a referendum...overwhelming support for an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”

Many Republicans not only believe $15 an hour is too much, but that the issue is unrelated to the COVID relief efforts and should be considered separately. Sen. Susan Collins (R., Me.) told reporters on Tuesday she would support raising the minimum wage to an amount less than $15 an hour, but not in the stimulus package.

“It is not relevant to treatment or the economic recovery, or getting vaccines out. In fact it would be very difficult for the hospitality industry which has been particularly harmed,” said Collins.

The Raise the Wage Act would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 over the course of five years.

David Foster/Yahoo Finance

The survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found 83% agreed Congress should consider the wage hike separately from a COVID relief package. If Congress does increase the minimum wage, a majority of people polled said it should be increased in the future based on cost-of-living or median wages.
High earners, college educated disconnected from realities of minimum wage

Eighty-three percent of Americans agreed that a person working a full-time job at the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour isn’t making enough money to live.

People in households making more than $100,000 a year were most likely to think a full-time minimum wage job was enough for people to get by, according to the poll. Twenty-eight percent of high-earners said $7.25 an hour was enough to live on, while just 12% of those in households making less than $50,000 annually said $7.27 an hour sufficed.

Service industry workers listen to remarks and hold up signs during a rally in support of today's introduction of the Raise the Wage Act, which includes a $15 minimum wage for tipped workers and is also included in President Biden's American Rescue Plan at the National Mall on January 26, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for One Fair Wage)More

College graduates also appear to be more disconnected from the realities of minimum wage, with graduates being more than twice as likely as non-graduates to say minimum wage is enough for a person to live on.

Almost three-quarters of respondents say they believe a full-time minimum wage job should keep an individual above the poverty line and allow them to afford a one-bedroom apartment. The federal poverty guideline (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is $12,880 for one person, $17,420 for a household of two and $26,500 for a family of four. A minimum wage employee working 40 hours a week would bring in a gross income (before taxes) of $15,080.

Last year, research showed the average minimum wage worker would have to work 79 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental home at average fair market rent. A full-time worker making the minimum wage could only afford a one-bedroom rental in 145 counties in the United States.

“That's not right,” said Scott. “People know that we have to do something, and there's a consensus all over the country.”

Majority of Americans think minimum wage hike would help the economy

While Republicans argue the next coronavirus relief package should be more targeted and focus solely on relief efforts, Democrats make the case that raising the minimum wage would spur the economic recovery and provide more security for minimum wage workers amid the pandemic.

The poll found 59% of Americans believe raising the minimum wage would have a positive impact on the economy.

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office found that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would boost the income of millions of people, but it would also result in some job losses. The CBO is reportedly set to release new projections soon, that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) hopes will bolster his case for a wage hike.

There is a range of research about the impact of raising the minimum wage, and disagreement about how to interpret the findings. The National Bureau of Economic Research found last month that “this body of evidence and conclusions points strongly toward negative effects of minimum wages on employment of less-skilled workers.”

A quarter of respondents surveyed said a federal minimum wage should not exist at all.

Jessica Smith is chief political correspondent for Yahoo Finance, based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @JessicaASmith8.

Biden Urged to 'Be the Hero' to Save American Bumblebee From Extinction

"It is our hope that the Biden administration grasps the gravity of this moment."

by

Andrea Germanos, staff writer

 Published on Monday, February 01, 2021

by

Common Dreams

Failure to secure Endangered Species Act protections for the American bumblebee, said the the Center for Biological Diversity's Jess Tyler, could risk "losing this iconic part of the American landscape forever." (Photo: Xerces Society / Katie Lamke)

Warning that threats including the climate crisis and pesticides are pushing the American bumblebee toward extinction, two conservation groups on Monday urged the Biden administration to give federal protections to the native pollinator.

"We're asking President [Joe] Biden to be the hero that steps up and saves the American bumblebee from extinction," said Jess Tyler, an entomologist and staff scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. "It's unthinkable that we would carelessly allow this fuzzy, black-and-yellow beauty to disappear forever."

"It's unthinkable that we would carelessly allow this fuzzy, black-and-yellow beauty to disappear forever."
—Jess Tyler, Center for Biological DiversityTo stave off that scenario, Tyler's group joined the Bombus Pollinator Association of Law Students of Albany Law School in urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the American bumblebee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Keith Hirokawa, a professor of law at Albany Law School, called it "unfortunate that we're forced to call upon the Endangered Species Act to protect a species so fundamental to human and ecosystem health."

"It is our hope," said Hirokawa, "that the Biden administration grasps the gravity of this moment."

The groups' 72-page petition [pdf] to the agency describes the gravity in clear terms, pointing in part to how the species— referring to the pollinators known as both Bombus pensylvanicus and Bombus sonorous—have gone from being once common and dominant to suffering a "devastating loss" of abundance. From the filing:

Once the most commonly observed bumblebee in the United States, the American bumblebee has declined by 89% in relative abundance and continues to decline toward extinction due to the disastrous, synergistic impacts of threats including habitat loss, pesticides, disease, climate change, competition with honey bees, and loss of genetic diversity. In the last 20 years, the American bumblebee has vanished from at least eight states, mostly in the Northeast, and it is in precipitous decline in many more. For example, in New York it has suffered a catastrophic decline of 99% in relative abundance, and in Illinois it has disappeared from the northern part of the state and is down 74% since 2004. In sum, the American bumblebee has become very rare or possibly extripated [sic] from 16 states in the Northeast and Northwest; it has experienced declines of over 90% in the upper Midwest; and 19 other states in the Southeast and Midwest have seen declines of over 50%.

Bolstering the groups' argument for ESA protections is international recogintion of the American bumble's plight, with the petition citing as an example the IUCN's "vulnerable" classification. Further, the groups add,  "The American bumblebee has not been protected under any state endangered species statute."

Simply put, the species "urgently needs the protections that only ESA listing can provide. Without these necessary protections, the American bumblebee will continue to precipitously decline," the groups wrote.

According to the center's Tyler, while the situation for the bee is grim, there is hope.

"There's no question that human activities have pushed this bee toward extinction, so we have the ability to wake up, reverse course, and save it," said Tyler.

"But this late in the game," he added, "it's going to take the powerful tools provided only by the Endangered Species Act to get the job done. Anything short of that and we risk losing this iconic part of the American landscape forever."

White Privilege: Where's Kyle?

by

Abby Zimet, Further columnist

 Wednesday, February 03, 2021

Good times. Photo is state's exhibit.

It seems the courts have lost track of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old punk charged with multiple felony counts, including homicide, after he killed two people and wounded one at last summer's BLM protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Being a white boy and all, Rittenhouse was out on bail after Trump-loving, riot-inciting, election-fraud-lie-spewing attorney Lin Wood - who is now under investigation for voting illegally in said election - raised $2 million to get him released. Kyle was so happy that, right after his arraignment on Jan. 5, he "demonstrated his carefree attitude," in the words of prosecutors, by high-tailing it to a bar, drinking three beers - he was still 17 at the time but under the clearly wise tutelage of his mother - and getting his picture taken with a bunch of "Proud Boys" while flashing white power signs and wearing a "Free As Fuck" t-shirt, because he's just that classy a guy. But when Kenosha detectives recently went to what was Rittenhouse's address, a man said he'd been renting the apartment since Dec. 15 and Kyle was nowhere in sight, having inexplicably declined to correct his address on a document he signed Jan. 22.

On Wednesday, prosecutors asked a judge to issue a new arrest warrant charging Rittenhouse with violating bail conditions; they also asked bail be upped by $200,000, noting it's rare for a homicide defendant to be left to roam free and they'd kinda like to know where he is. Rittenhouse’s attorney countered in a motion that death threats have driven Rittenhouse and his wonderful mom into a "safe house," he offered to give prosecutors the address if they'd keep it secret, but they refused. Online, some argued Kyle fits right into the "big tent" GOP of bigots, insurrectionists, neo-Nazis, grifters, liars and rapists. Many also noted that, while it's a tad alarming Kyle's just out there, it would be way scarier if he'd been charged with, say, selling individual cigarettes or holding up a cell phone or playing with a toy gun or riding a bike without a light or turning a car without signalling or running or sleeping or babysitting or passing a baby or taking the subway or knocking on a door after running out of gas or carrying a bag or stealing a bag of chips or having a mental health crisis or wearing a hoodie or, you know, living while black, so there's that.

 

 

The False Equivalence Between the Democratic Left and the Republican Right Is Absurd

If this country’s media institutions are to truly function as means of public enlightenment and civic education in this very dark time, then they had better be very clear about this difference.

by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Published on Wednesday, February 03, 2021 by Common Dreams

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) greets supporters after speaking to a crowd during a rally against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on January 28, 2021 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Gaetz added his voice to a growing effort to vote Cheney out of office after she voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

This week Jonathan Chait published an eviscerating profile of gun-toting Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in New York Magazine, cleverly entitled "GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser."

Chait leads with a reference to "The Mischief Makers," a short piece by Alayna Treene and Kadia Goba, published in Axios. As he comments on the piece's framing: "The leading Democratic mischief-maker is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who advocates some left-wing views I consider simplistic and impractical and, in some cases, poll badly. The top example of a conservative mischief-maker, presented in perfect symmetry, is Marjorie Taylor Greene." He then sardonically notes that "Greene's views are just a bit more controversial," and proceeds to identify the range of delusional and/or fascistic things Greene has very publicly said, exemplified in Chait's very title

His conclusion:

. . . it is true that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez play equivalent roles within their respective parties. MTG holds down her party's right flank, and AOC holds down her party's left flank. You can somewhat deduce the corresponding beliefs of the two parties' mainstream contingents by moving somewhat to the center of each. Most Democrats are skeptical of defunding the police and question the feasibility of transitioning to a state-run health-care system. Most Republicans are probably quite skeptical that the California wildfires were intentionally set by a Jewish space laser. The thing is, you can be much more moderate than MTG, and still be extremely crazy.

Chait's piece appears to mock the Axios piece, pointing out the absurdity of likening AOC, whose views may be "impractical," to Greene, whose views are both deranged and dangerous. But it also trades on the Axios equivalence, by continuing to play the two "extremes" off against each other to the benefit of "moderation." His purpose is clearly not to defend AOC but rather to defend those centrist Democrats who find her annoying. His point seems to be something like this: "both parties may have their crazy extremists, but the Republican extremists are crazier and more dangerous and, because they pull their party far to the right, their centrists are much less moderate than the centrists of the Democratic party, who thankfully have not allowed their extremists as much power." Readers of Chait will be unsurprised by this message, because while he has long been a loud critic of the Republican right and its domination of the party, he has also been a strong and often tendentious critic of the Democratic left.

There is no comparison between the Democratic party's left and the Republican party's right.Chait has it both ways with the Democratic left in the piece, for he is clear that AOC is no Marjorie Taylor Greene even as he disses them both (for, honestly, being less scary than Greene is a low bar indeed!).

The Axios piece, on the other hand, in typically Beltway-gossip fashion, goes all in on the false equivalence.

The lead: "Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers are emerging as troublemakers within their parties and political thorns for their leadership. . . . We're calling this group "The Mischief Makers"—members who threaten to upend party unity . . . Axios spoke with a number of congressional sources about whom they find to be the most unpredictable and headache-inducing. Here's what they said." What follows is a list of five Republicans followed by a similar list of Democrats.

The Republicans: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massie, Louie Gohmert, and Mo Brooks.

The Democrats: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush (to be fair, the piece also names, in passing beneath the progressives listed above, two center-right Democrats, Jared Golden and Conor Lamb, who have "bucked" Pelosi's leadership).

The symmetry here is clear: the Republican rightists make life difficult for Republican leadership, and Democratic leftists make life difficult for Democratic leadership.

The Axios piece was published days ago, on January 28, over three weeks after the MAGA assault on the U.S. Capitol and Congress. And yet in its even-handed report of how Republican and Democratic leaders view their parties' respective "extremists," it fails to even mentionthis seemingly relevant fact: while all five of those pesky Republican mavericks strongly supported Trump and his "Stop the Steal" insurgency, and four of the five either praised the insurrectionists after the fact or perhaps even colluded with them, AOC and her progressive colleagues have long been staunch supporters of constitutional democracy who have had literal targets placed on their backs by Trump, Gaetz, Brooks, and company.

On the one side you have progressive legislators who have indeed supported the moderate proposals of Democratic leadership, and on the other side you have literal neo-fascists who insist on their right to refuse masks but to carry guns on the floor of Congress and who echo calls to "hang Mike Pence," the then-sitting Vice President of their own party. On the one side you have people of color—and allof those progressives on the list are people of color—who have been marked for assassination and who were hiding in fear of their lives on January 6, and on the other side you have the white supremacists who cheered on the MAGA vigilantes as they stalked their prey, acting like racist characters in Jordan Peele's film "Get Out!"

This false equivalence cuts the Republican right extraordinary slack while slandering the Democratic left, which is neither violent nor racist.

Just as importantly, it completely misrepresents the two parties and the way that they currently function. For those pesky Q-anon-sympathizing rightists might sometimes be a little too much for Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy to handle, but they are in fact loyal and willing supporters of the man who has led the Republican party for four years and leads it still—Donald Trump. Far from being "dissenters," they—along with Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, and a wide cast of equally despicable characters—have spent the last four years aiding and abetting the most dangerous and authoritarian administration in U.S. history. They are the Republican party mainstream. And, truth be told, while McConnell and McCarthy might find their hard core "sedition caucus" sometimes annoying, they too have used their substantial power to provide aid and comfort to the far-right cause and to the effort to overturn the election.

"The Squad," on the other hand, remains what it has been from the start: a group of mainly young progressives who have worked within the Democratic party to promote such "crazy" ideas as a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a $15 federal minimum wage. They seek to mobilize new voters and to defend voting rights rather than to restrict voting and overturn a democratic election! And they seek to draft and pass legislation through normal democratic channels, and refrain from calling out mobs to attack Congress while in session.

These are the leftist "extremists" likened by Axios to Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz?

The parallel drawn is outrageous, absurd, and an act of journalistic malpractice.

There is no comparison between the Democratic party's left and the Republican party's right.

The former is a small caucus dedicated to promoting a progressive agenda through democratic means.

The latter is the vanguard of a neo-fascist movement that dominates the Republican party and poses a clear and present danger to constitutional democracy.

The former deserve respect and, in the eyes of many, myself included, they deserve admiration and support.

The latter deserve nothing but scorn, decisive political defeat, and historical ignominy.

If this country's media institutions are to truly function as means of public enlightenment and civic education in this very dark time, then they had better be very clear about this difference.

There is no time to lose.

And the future of democracy itself hangs in the balance.

Jeffrey C. Isaac is James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. His books include: "Democracy in Dark Times"(1998); "The Poverty of Progressivism: The Future of American Democracy in a Time of Liberal Decline" (2003), and "Arendt, Camus, and Modern Rebellion" (1994).

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

Ottawa Agrees to Explore Drug Decriminalization in Vancouver
Mayor hopes talks will be a step toward a ‘health-focused’ approach to drug policy amid overdose crisis.

Moira Wyton 27 Jan 2021 | TheTyee.ca
Moira Wyton is The Tyee’s health reporter. Follow her @moirawyton or reach her here. 

This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

Decriminalization means people with drugs for personal use would not have to fear arrest or seizure of their supplies. Photo by Jesse Winter.


The federal government has agreed to begin discussions about decriminalizing drug possession in Vancouver, Mayor Kennedy Stewart said today.

We’ve got a global crisis or two — or three — on our hands. Let’s take these solutions into 2021.

“This is another hopeful and critical milestone on the path towards fully embracing a health-focused approach to substance use in the City of Vancouver,” said Stewart in a news release.

City council backed decriminalization in November, and on Dec. 7 the city wrote to federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu asking for an exemption from possession prohibitions in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Stewart hopes Vancouver’s decriminalization model would prioritize health interventions for substance use and end arrests and seizures when people have small amounts of drugs for personal use.

In a Monday letter to Stewart and Vancouver Coastal Health chief medical officer Dr. Patricia Daly, Hajdu agreed to discussions.

“Health Canada officials will work with officials from the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Coastal Health to better understand the framework you are proposing,” Hajdu wrote. “I am committed to our continued work to identify options that respond to the local needs of the City of Vancouver.”

At least 367 people died of toxic drug overdoses in Vancouver between January and November 2020 in what is on track to be the deadliest year on record for overdoses in B.C.


NDP and Greens Push Trudeau to Answer Vancouver’s Call to Decriminalize Drugs

READ MORE

“This news comes at a time when the overdose crisis in our city has never been worse, with a person a day still needlessly dying due to poisoned drugs,” said Stewart.

Decriminalization would remove criminal penalties for possession of illicit drugs for personal use. Manufacturing and distributing drugs would remain illegal.

Experts in substance use and public health, including provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, her predecessor Dr. Perry Kendall and their federal counterpart Dr. Theresa Tam, agree on a public health approach to drug use and have called for decriminalization as a means of curbing skyrocketing overdose fatalities.

Section 56 of the act grants the health minister to issue an exemption to any part of the legislation, including provisions making drug possession illegal, “if, in the opinion of the Minister, the exemption is necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest.”

It is the same mechanism the city used to establish North America’s first supervised injection site, Insite, in 2003, and more recently to allow health-care providers to prescribe alternatives to street drugs as a part of safer supply measures.

Hajdu also wrote that this is an opportunity to address racism and discrimination in the legal system as it relates to substance use.


Vancouver Voted to Decriminalize Drugs. Now What? READ MORE 

Indigenous peoples in B.C. are more likely to die of an overdose and across Canada are incarcerated at a rate nearly six times higher than non-Indigenous adults.

“We must explore policy measures that reduce harm to racialized communities, and explore alternatives to criminal penalties that can begin to address the systemic inequities these communities face,” said Hajdu.

Stewart said in November he hopes Vancouver’s model will be based on voluntary treatment and expanded support rather than relying on fines and mandatory treatment, as Oregon’s recently approved model does.

“While 2020 looks to be the deadliest year on record for overdoses, I am hopeful that this news from Ottawa can mean that 2021 will be different,” Stewart said in the news release.

Showing 'Better, More Just World Is Possible,' Oregon Decriminalizes Low-Level Possession of All Drugs

"Today, the first domino of our cruel and inhumane war on drugs has fallen—setting off what we expect to be a cascade of other efforts centering health over criminalization."

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
Published on Monday, February 01, 2021
by Common Dreams

More than 200 overdose prevention activists staged a protest on August 28, 2019—before the coronavirus pandemic—at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's NYC office to call out the Democrat for not enacting evidence-based overdose prevention policies that could save lives. 

(Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In what justice advocates celebrated as a major shift away from the devastating and failed policies of the nation's so-called "war on drugs," Oregon on Monday officially became the first state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs with a new policy that also aims to boost access various related services.

"For the first time in at least half a century, one place in the United States—Oregon—will show us that we can give people help without punishing them."

—Kassandra Frederique, Drug Policy Alliance

Oregon voters passed Measure 110, also called the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, by a 17% margin in November. The ballot initiative was spearheaded by Drug Policy Action—the advocacy arm of Drug Policy Alliance—in partnership with Oregon groups and supported by over 100 local, state, and national organizations.

"Today, the first domino of our cruel and inhumane war on drugs has fallen—setting off what we expect to be a cascade of other efforts centering health over criminalization," said Drug Policy Alliance executive director Kassandra Frederique in a statement Monday. "For the first time in at least half a century, one place in the United States—Oregon—will show us that we can give people help without punishing them."

"This law is meant to protect people against persecution, harassment, and criminalization at the hands of the state for using drugs and instead [give] access to the supports they need," Frederique explained. "Over the last year, we have been painfully reminded of the harms that come from drug war policing and the absence of necessary health services and other support systems in our communities. Today, Oregon shows us a better, more just world is possible."

As VICE senior editor Manisha Krishnan tweeted, it is a "historic day for drug reform," noting that the measure is expected to reduce racial disparities in drug arrests.

historic day for drug reform. personal possession of all drugs is now decriminalized in Oregon, a measure that's expected to reduce the racial disparity in low-level drug arrests by 95 percent: https://t.co/xwC2vb8Vc5

— (@ManishaKrishnan) February 1, 2021

Anyone found in possession of one to three grams of heroin, one to four grams of MDMA, two to eight grams of methamphetamine, or two to eight grams of cocaine "will be charged with simple possession, a misdemeanor offense, rather than a felony," Krishnan reported. The new lower-level possession limits are:
Less than one gram of heroin;
Less than one gram, or less than five pills, of MDMA;
Less than two grams of methamphetamine;
Less than 40 units of LSD;
Less than 12 grams of psilocybin;
Less than 40 units of methadone;
Less than 40 pills of oxycodone; and
Less than two grams of cocaine.

Rather than a misdemeanor, drug possession as detailed above will lead to a citation that includes a phone number for recovery help. The citation will be dropped if they agree to the health assessment.

"The options will be to pay a $100 fine or call a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week phone line and talk to a peer-support specialist and get a social services needs screening done," Tera Hurst of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance told KPTV.

"Services for treatment options will be funded through a portion of marijuana tax revenue and the money saved from fewer arrests," according to KPTV. "On Monday, the law's Oversight and Accountability Council will form. It will determine rules for the new law, and also where grants and money are distributed."


State projections (pdf) cited by Drug Policy Alliance show the marijuana tax revenue could fund over $100 million in services the first year and up to $129 million by 2027. The advocacy group also highlighted an Oregon Criminal Justice Commission report (pdf) from August that found racial disparities in drug arrests could drop by nearly 95% as a result of the new policy.

Supporters of Oregon's shift to decriminalization and a healthcare-based approach to drug use and possession hope that the measure can serve as a model for the rest of the United States.

Some are hopeful Oregon's move to decriminalize drugs will be the first in a wave of progressive measures that undo years of damage caused by drug criminalization. https://t.co/85WcoGSbPf

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 1, 2021

"I hope that we all become more enlightened across this country that substance abuse is not something that necessitates incarceration, but speaks to other social ills—lack of healthcare, lack of treatment, things of that nature," Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) told USA Today. "If you're white and wealthy, you get an opportunity to get a break, go home to your family, and go into some kind of healthcare environment."

In June 2018, Watson Coleman introduced a resolution that "expresses the sense of Congress that the war on drugs failed, and calls out the disparate treatment of individuals criminalized for drug use—frequently people of color who used crack and cocaine—to ensure that all future drug policy is based on evidence-based healthcare solutions."

Her resolution was endorsed by the Drug Policy Alliance as well as Amnesty International, the Justice Policy Institute, Justice Strategies, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP, and the Sentencing Project.

Although the congresswoman, who is Black, did not say whether she plans to re-introduce the resolution now that Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the White House, she emphasized to USA Today that the war on drugs "was used as a weapon, as a tool to disrupt our communities," adding that "it wasn't a war on drugs, it was a war on poor brown and Black men and women, and it did terrible things to families for generations."

Oregon's progress on drug policy reform comes as advocates are pushing President Joe Biden to "abandon criminalization as a means to address substance use, and instead ensure universal access to equitable evidence-based solutions rooted in racial and economic justice and compassion," as over 200 groups wrote in a letter just before he took office last month.

Detailing a series of policy proposals, the coalition wrote to Biden that "it is our strong hope and belief that ending the drug war that has inflicted incredible harm in communities across this nation, and centering evidence-based solutions to address the overdose crisis, could be a great catalyst for a national transformation."

The Real Winners of Pandemic Super Bowl 2021? The Sports Owners Raking in Billions

Even in a pandemic, 64 billionaires have seen incredible gains from the major league sports teams they own.

by Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo
Published onWednesday, February 03, 2021
by Inequality.org


An aerial view of Raymond James Stadium ahead of Super Bowl LV on January 31, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

We won’t know the winner of this year’s Super Bowl till Sunday, but we already know the big winners in our COVID-ravaged economy include dozens of billionaire sports barons.

On the eve of the big game, and after 10-plus months of the pandemic, 64 billionaire owners of major league sports franchises—including the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs’ Hunt family and the NFC champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Glazer family—have enjoyed a $98.5 billion rise in their collective net worth, a 30 percent increase, even as millions of fans have fallen ill, lost jobs, neared eviction, gone hungry and died due to the coronavirus.

The 64 billionaires, who together own or co-own 68 professional sports franchises, had a combined wealth of $426 billion on January 29, 2021, up from $325 billion on March 18, 2020, roughly since the start of the pandemic lockdowns, according to “Pandemic Super Bowl 2021: Billionaires Win, We Lose,” a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) analyzing data from Forbes and Wealth-X. [Note: The increase in total billionaire wealth from March to January was $101 billion, but has been adjusted to $98.5 billion because two billionaires only reached that status in January 2021.]

The sports billionaires’ private gain in the midst of so much public pain is particularly galling since many of their franchises have been the beneficiaries of taxpayer handouts. Over the past several decades, according to data maintained by Field of Schemes, 28 pro sports teams owned by 26 billionaires have received $9 billion in taxpayer subsidies (see Table 2 here) to help build or update stadiums and arenas and make other investments billionaires could presumably afford on their own. These publicly subsidized team owners have seen their wealth increase $45 billion since mid-March.

For the full report go to Pandemic Super Bowl 2021: Billionaires Win, We Lose.

Over the past five years—when a lot of those sweetheart tax deals were cut—the collective wealth of sports billionaires shot up $165 billion, or 66.7 percent. Their combined wealth of $247 billion in March 2016 had grown to $426 billion by January 29 of this year.

The $98.5 billion wealth gain by 64 sports franchise billionaires since March 2020 could pay for:
A stimulus check of $1,400 for over 70 million Americans—almost half of the 153 million people who likely will be eligible under the pandemic relief plan proposed by President Biden based on the 2020 stimulus payments.

More than one-third of the $290 billion cost of providing $400-a-week supplements to existing unemployment benefits through September, as proposed by President Biden in his COVID rescue plan.

March 18 is used as the unofficial beginning of the pandemic because by then most federal and state economic restrictions responding to the virus were in place. Moreover, March 18 was also the date on which Forbes estimated billionaire wealth for the 2020 version of its annual report. That report provided a detailed baseline that ATF and IPS have been comparing periodically with real-time data from the Forbes website. This methodology has been favorably reviewed by PolitiFact.

Last March is when the nation’s emergency response to the deadly virus threw professional sports along with the rest of society into turmoil. Thousands of low-paid stadium and arena workers lost their jobs as sports seasons were cancelled and curtailed.



The long winning streak of America’s billionaire sports owners is just part of the dominance of a national dynasty of 661 U.S. billionaires whose wealth has grown by $1.18 trillion, or 40%, during the pandemic, climbing from $2.9 trillion on March 18 to $4.13 trillion, as of January 29, 2021 (see link here for January 29, 2021 data).

Though only one of their teams will lift the Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl champs this year, both the Chiefs’ Hunt family—specifically, Ray Lee Hunt and W. Herbert Hunt—and the Bucs’ Glazer family will continue their long reigns among the nation’s biggest economic winners. The Hunts’ net worth is estimated by Forbes at $6.3 billion, up $482 million during the COVID crisis. Their Chiefs received $250 million in taxpayer subsidies for stadium renovations in 2006.

The Buc’s Glazer family is worth an estimated $1.7 billion, according to Wealth-X. Taxpayers provided a total of $218 million in subsidies for construction and renovation of the Buccaneer stadium in 1998 and 2015.



Sixty U.S. billionaires—roughly one in ten of the country’s 661 total billionaires—own one or more major league professional sports teams in the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MBL), and National Hockey League (NHL). Three of the billionaire team owners are Canadian and one is German, for a total of 64.

Tax reform that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share—the principle President Biden’s tax plan is built on—would transform a good chunk of those huge billionaire gains into public revenue to help heal a hurting nation.

Tax reform that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share—the principle President Biden’s tax plan is built on—would transform a good chunk of those huge billionaire gains into public revenue to help heal a hurting nation. But getting at that big boost in billionaire fortunes is not as simple as raising tax rates: tax rules let the rich delay, diminish and even ultimately avoid any tax on the growth in their wealth. What’s needed is structural change to how wealth is taxed.

The most direct approach is an annual wealth tax on the biggest fortunes, proposed by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, among others. Another option is the annual taxation of investment gains on stocks and other tradable assets, an idea advanced by the new Senate Finance Committee chair, Ron Wyden. Even under the current discounted tax rates for investment income, if Wyden’s plan had been in effect in 2020 America’s billionaire sports owners would be paying billions of dollars in extra taxes this spring thanks to their gargantuan pandemic profits last year. Another needed reform is to significantly strengthen the estate tax so that the riches accumulated by these ultra-wealthy sports franchise owners pay their fair share of taxes when these dynasties get passed onto their heirs.

Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org, and is author of the new book, "Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good." He is co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good, recently merged with the Patriotic Millionaires. He is co-author of "99 to 1: The Moral Measure of the Economy" and, with Bill Gates Sr., of "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes."

Omar Ocampo is a researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He graduated from the University ofMassachusetts Boston with a B.A. in Political Science and holds a Masters in International Relations from the American University in Cairo. His thesis focused on the politics of international oil and humanitarian intervention in Libya.

Why corporate power over American politics was laid bare after the Capitol Hill insurrection

Don’t be fooled that corporations’ motives are moral.

By

 Leonard C. Goodman

 -

January 30, 2021Independent Media Institute

Image Credit: Hightower Lowdown

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The second impeachment of President Trump, this time for inciting a riot, got a big boost when dozens of large corporations endorsed the effort. Amazon, American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BP, BlackRock, Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, and other major companies announced their support for impeachment by stopping donations to Republicans who refused to certify the Electoral College vote. Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook have banned Trump from their platforms, while his lender Deutsche Bank has reportedly cut off funding to his golf courses and hotels.

These moves by major corporate donors helped convince 10 House Republicans to join the Democrats in voting for impeachment, even though their defection from Trump will likely invite challengers in future GOP primaries. Trump’s impeachment now moves to the Senate for trial. The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to convict a president, meaning at least 17 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democrats and independents in the new Senate.

According to a January 13 Associated Press article, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to “major Republican donors last weekend to assess their thinking about Trump and was told that they believed Trump had clearly crossed a line.” McConnell now sees the “House Democrats’ drive to impeach Trump as an opportune moment to distance the GOP from the tumultuous, divisive outgoing president.”

All this is more proof that the big corporations control the levers of power in D.C. And in case you think that these corporations are taking a moral stand against Trump or to protect our constitutional democracy, don’t be fooled. These companies have purchased our representatives outright, destroying democracy. They are enemies of working people and the environment. Amazon busts unions and pays poverty wages, forcing its workers to rely on food stamps to survive while its head, Jeff Bezos, has increased his net worth by nearly $70 billion since last March. BP is one of the world’s biggest polluters; its 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which covered 68,000 square miles, killed 11 people and inflicted untold ecological damage. BlackRock is the world’s biggest financial backer of fossil fuel companies and has worsened the global climate crisis exponentially.

The sole objective of these corporations is stability, which they expect President Joe Biden to restore. They already got their tax cuts, deregulation, and bailouts from Trump. Now they want him to leave the stage. They don’t care if the president is a Democrat or Republican. They own and control both of those parties. They just want someone less erratic and disruptive.

In 2003, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney told outright lies to convince Americans that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical weapons and was seeking nuclear weapons. All to justify a war that killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. When proof of this deception came out, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected calls to impeach Bush. No one was held accountable for this monstrous war crime, nor for the regime of torture used to cover up the fraud. To the contrary, CIA Director George Tenet, who helped the president perpetrate the fraud and the coverup, was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

The failure to hold war criminals to account guarantees that their crimes will be repeated by future leaders. Indeed, in 2011, the Obama administration again told lies to convince Americans that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was supplying his soldiers with Viagra to encourage mass rape, and that he was planning to massacre civilians in Benghazi. These official lies spurred the NATO bombing campaign that killed thousands of innocents and transformed Libya from the African country with the highest standard of living into a war-torn failed state.

War is incredibly profitable to the weapons manufacturers and Wall Street. Thus our major corporations will never support impeachment hearings for war crimes. The corporate donors demand that future presidents be free to lie us into disastrous (but profitable) wars without fear of impeachment.

Trump may well deserve to be impeached for inciting a riot, even though his trial in the Senate will be largely symbolic as it won’t take place until after he has left the White House. But the focus on Trump as the villain will allow other culprits to avoid scrutiny. For example, the assault on the U.S. Capitol was planned for weeks out in the open on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Tens of thousands of Trump supporters who believe the election was stolen were encouraged to come to the Capitol on January 6 and stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president-elect. Yet our well-funded Department of Homeland Security and 17 intelligence agencies somehow failed to protect the Capitol.

The Capitol Police has more than 2,000 officers and a nearly half-billion-dollar budget, bigger than the budgets for police departments like Atlanta and Detroit. It has one mission: to defend 2 square miles. Yet observers report that only a fraction of the force was on duty January 6, and that some of those officers may have aided the rioters. When Black Lives Matter protesters were feared to pose a threat to monuments and landmarks last summer, the National Guard was immediately brought in and the protesters were violently suppressed. But this time, requests to bring in the National Guard were denied or delayed.

An investigation into the failures of law enforcement before and on January 6 is critical. Especially since President-elect Biden has already announced plans to pass a new Patriot Act to combat “domestic terrorism.” In other words, just like after 9/11, our government wants to reward its own incompetence by expanding its powers. History teaches that agencies like the FBI will use their expanded powers to hunt down and neutralize the left. In the 1960s, the FBI used programs like COINTELPRO to harass civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and to crush the Black Panthers, the Socialist Workers Party, and the American Indian Movement, all under the guise of weeding out “extremism.”

Congress itself deserves scrutiny for its dismal performance during the pandemic. Most other governments around the world recognized that if you require businesses to shut down, you must take care of workers. Countries like Australia, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada are all providing subsidies and support for furloughed workers. But here in the wealthiest country on earth, Congress responded to the pandemic by passing the CARES Act, which protected the profits of the investor class and left most workers out in the cold. Many Americans are understandably feeling desperate and betrayed.

I recently wrote about the growing movement on social media to pressure progressives in the House (aka the “Squad”) to “Force the Vote” on a Medicare for All bill that was introduced nearly two years ago with more than 100 cosponsors. Although the bill has the overwhelming support of the people, Pelosi has refused to bring it to the floor for a public debate and a vote. Why? Because the major donors to the Democratic Party prefer our for-profit health care system in which millions of Americans face bankruptcy when they get sick, even if they have insurance. I wrote that the Squad had the leverage to demand a vote on Medicare for All in exchange for assuring Nancy Pelosi’s reelection as speaker. Indeed, members of the Squad like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got elected promising to stand up to corporate Democrats like Pelosi and to fight for Medicare for All.

On January 3, 2021, Pelosi was reelected speaker of the House. Not one member of the Squad withheld their vote for Pelosi or made the demand of a floor vote for Medicare for All a subject of protest during the proceedings. The speed at which the Squad has collapsed and been co-opted into the fold of the corporate Democrats is demoralizing for the true progressives who supported their campaigns and believed their promises. It shows that people don’t change the Democratic Party; it changes them. It also illustrates why it is time for a People’s Party that is not funded by corporations.

The spectacle of another impeachment trial also lets the mainstream press off the hook for its part in fueling the rage that erupted on January 6 at the Capitol. Once great bastions of unbiased journalism have become partisan tools of the corporate parties. While half of the country is told that Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump, the other half is told that Russia stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton and that Trump is a Russian agent.

I do want to kick off the new year with something hopeful. President-elect Biden has nominated a respected and experienced diplomat to be CIA director. William Burns is a former deputy secretary of state and ambassador to Russia. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and cofounder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, says, “Burns can be counted on to help Biden resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal—the more so, since Burns played a key role in getting the negotiations with Iran started.” There is also hope that Burns will be able to bring the CIA back toward its original mission of unbiased intelligence collection instead of what the CIA has become—a dangerous paramilitary organization involved in drone targeting and regime-change operations around the globe.

Here’s to keeping hope alive and to better times in 2021!