UN secretary-general on global access to vaccines and effort to combat climate change
Duration: 03:30
AP Top Stories April 8, 2021
Thursday, April 08, 2021
Twelve months of trauma: more than 3,600 US health workers died in Covid’s first year
Nurses and support staff died in far higher numbers than physicians.
The year-long series of investigative reports found that many of these deaths could have been prevented. Widespread PPE and mask shortages, a lack of Covid testing, weak contact tracing, inconsistent mask guidance by politicians, missteps by employers, and lax enforcement of workplace safety rules by government regulators all contributed to the increased risk faced by healthcare workers. Studies show that healthcare workers were more than 3 times as likely to contract Covid as the general public.
“We rightfully refer to these people without hyperbole – that they are true heroes and heroines,” said Dr Anthony Fauci in an exclusive interview with the Guardian and KHN. The Covid deaths of so many health workers are “a reflection of what healthcare workers have done historically, putting themselves in harm’s way, by living up to the oath they take when they become physicians and nurses,” he said.
Lost on the Frontline launched last April with the story of Frank Gabrin, the first known American emergency room doctor to die of Covid-19. In the early days of the pandemic, Gabrin, 60, was on the frontlines of the surge, treating Covid patients in New York and New Jersey. Yet, like so many others, he was working without proper personal protective equipment, known as PPE. “Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he texted a friend. “No N95 masks – my own goggles – my own face shield.”
Gabrin’s untimely death was the first fatality entered into the Lost on the Frontline database. His story of working through a crisis to save lives shared similarities with the thousands that followed.
Maritza Beniquez, an emergency room nurse at Newark’s University hospital in New Jersey, watched 11 colleagues die in the early months of the pandemic. Like the patients they had been treating, most were Black and Latino. “It literally decimated our staff,” she said.
Her hospital has placed 11 trees in the lobby, one for each employee who has died of Covid-19; they have been adorned with remembrances and gifts from their colleagues.
More than 100 journalists contributed to the project in an effort to record every death and memorialize those who died. The project’s journalists filed public records requests, cross-connected governmental and private data sources, scoured obituaries and social media posts, and confirmed deaths through family members, workplaces, and colleagues.
Among its key findings on those fatalities for which we have detailed information:
More than half of those who died were younger than 60. In the general population, the median age of death from Covid-19 is 78. Yet among healthcare workers in our database, it is only 59.
More than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.
Twice as many workers died in nursing homes as hospitals. Only 30% of deaths were among hospital workers, and relatively few were employed by well-funded academic medical centers. The rest worked in less-prestigious residential facilities, outpatient clinics, hospices and prisons, among other places.
The death rate among healthcare workers has slowed dramatically since the vaccine was made available to them last December. A study published in late March found that only four of 8,121 fully vaccinated employees at the University of Texas Southwestern medical center in Dallas became infected. But deaths lag behind infections and KHN and the Guardian have tracked more than 400 healthcare worker deaths since the vaccine rollout began.
Many factors contributed to the high toll – but our investigations uncovered some consistent problems that heightened the risks faced by healthcare workers.
We also found that healthcare employers were failing to report worker deaths to OSHA. Our data analysis found that more than a third of workplace Covid deaths were not reported to regulators.
Among the most visceral findings of Lost on the Frontline was the devastating impact of PPE shortages. Adeline Fagan, a 28-year-old OB-GYN resident in Texas, suffered from asthma and had a long history of respiratory ailments.
Months into the pandemic, her family says she was using the same N95 mask over and over, even during a high-risk rotation in the emergency room.
Her parents blame both the hospital administration and government missteps for the PPE shortages that may have contributed to Adeline’s death last October. Her mother, Mary Jane Abt-Fagan, said Adeline’s N95 had been re-used so many times the fibers were beginning to disintegrate.
Not long before she fell ill – and after she’d been assigned to a high risk ER rotation – Adeline talked to her parents about whether she should spend her own money on an expensive N95 with a filter that could be changed daily. The $79 mask was a significant expense on her $52,000 resident’s salary.
“We said you buy this mask, you buy the filters, your father and I will pay for it. We didn’t care what it cost,” said her mother, Abt-Fagan.
She never had the opportunity to use it. By the time the mask arrived, Adeline was already on a ventilator in the hospital.
Fagan’s family feels let down by the US government’s response to the pandemic.
“Nobody chooses to go to work and die,” said Abt-Fagan. “We need to be more prepared, and the government needs to be more responsible in terms of keeping healthcare workers safe.”
Adeline’s father, Brant Fagan, wants the government to begin tracking healthcare worker deaths and examining the data to understand what went wrong. “That’s how we’re going to prevent this in the future, he says. “Know the data, follow where the science leads.”
Adeline’s parents say her death has been particularly painful because of her youth –and all the life milestones she never had the chance to experience. “Falling in love, buying a home, sharing your family and your life with your siblings,” said her mother. “It’s all those things she missed that break a parent’s heart.”
Nurses and support staff died in far higher numbers than physicians.
Hospital staff hold a vigil for Celia Marcos, a health worker who died in Los Angeles in May. The absence of reliable federal data exacerbated critical problems such as shortages of PPE that left many workers exposed. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPA
Lost on the Frontline, a year-long investigation by the Guardian and KHN to count healthcare worker deaths, ends today. This is what we learned in a year of tracing the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice
3,607 healthcare workers have died in the first year of the pandemic. Explore our interactive database
Jane Spencer and Christina Jewett
Thu 8 Apr 2021
More than 3,600 US healthcare workers perished in the first year of the pandemic according to Lost on the Frontline, a 12-month investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) to track such deaths.
Lost on the Frontline is the most complete accounting of US healthcare worker deaths. The federal government has not comprehensively tracked this data. But calls are mounting for the Biden administration to undertake a count as the Guardian/KHN project comes to a close today.
The project, which tracked who died and why, provides a window into the workings – and failings – of the US healthcare system during the pandemic. One key finding: Two thirds of deceased healthcare workers for whom we have data identified as people of color, revealing the deep inequities tied to race, ethnicity and economic status in America’s healthcare workforce. Lower paid workers who handled everyday patient care, including nurses, support staff, and nursing home employees, were far more likely to die in the pandemic than physicians.
Lost on the Frontline, a year-long investigation by the Guardian and KHN to count healthcare worker deaths, ends today. This is what we learned in a year of tracing the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice
3,607 healthcare workers have died in the first year of the pandemic. Explore our interactive database
Jane Spencer and Christina Jewett
Thu 8 Apr 2021
More than 3,600 US healthcare workers perished in the first year of the pandemic according to Lost on the Frontline, a 12-month investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) to track such deaths.
Lost on the Frontline is the most complete accounting of US healthcare worker deaths. The federal government has not comprehensively tracked this data. But calls are mounting for the Biden administration to undertake a count as the Guardian/KHN project comes to a close today.
The project, which tracked who died and why, provides a window into the workings – and failings – of the US healthcare system during the pandemic. One key finding: Two thirds of deceased healthcare workers for whom we have data identified as people of color, revealing the deep inequities tied to race, ethnicity and economic status in America’s healthcare workforce. Lower paid workers who handled everyday patient care, including nurses, support staff, and nursing home employees, were far more likely to die in the pandemic than physicians.
The year-long series of investigative reports found that many of these deaths could have been prevented. Widespread PPE and mask shortages, a lack of Covid testing, weak contact tracing, inconsistent mask guidance by politicians, missteps by employers, and lax enforcement of workplace safety rules by government regulators all contributed to the increased risk faced by healthcare workers. Studies show that healthcare workers were more than 3 times as likely to contract Covid as the general public.
“We rightfully refer to these people without hyperbole – that they are true heroes and heroines,” said Dr Anthony Fauci in an exclusive interview with the Guardian and KHN. The Covid deaths of so many health workers are “a reflection of what healthcare workers have done historically, putting themselves in harm’s way, by living up to the oath they take when they become physicians and nurses,” he said.
Lost on the Frontline launched last April with the story of Frank Gabrin, the first known American emergency room doctor to die of Covid-19. In the early days of the pandemic, Gabrin, 60, was on the frontlines of the surge, treating Covid patients in New York and New Jersey. Yet, like so many others, he was working without proper personal protective equipment, known as PPE. “Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he texted a friend. “No N95 masks – my own goggles – my own face shield.”
Gabrin’s untimely death was the first fatality entered into the Lost on the Frontline database. His story of working through a crisis to save lives shared similarities with the thousands that followed.
Maritza Beniquez, an emergency room nurse at Newark’s University hospital in New Jersey, watched 11 colleagues die in the early months of the pandemic. Like the patients they had been treating, most were Black and Latino. “It literally decimated our staff,” she said.
Her hospital has placed 11 trees in the lobby, one for each employee who has died of Covid-19; they have been adorned with remembrances and gifts from their colleagues.
More than 100 journalists contributed to the project in an effort to record every death and memorialize those who died. The project’s journalists filed public records requests, cross-connected governmental and private data sources, scoured obituaries and social media posts, and confirmed deaths through family members, workplaces, and colleagues.
Among its key findings on those fatalities for which we have detailed information:
More than half of those who died were younger than 60. In the general population, the median age of death from Covid-19 is 78. Yet among healthcare workers in our database, it is only 59.
More than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.
Nurses and support staff died in far higher numbers than physicians.
Twice as many workers died in nursing homes as hospitals. Only 30% of deaths were among hospital workers, and relatively few were employed by well-funded academic medical centers. The rest worked in less-prestigious residential facilities, outpatient clinics, hospices and prisons, among other places.
The death rate among healthcare workers has slowed dramatically since the vaccine was made available to them last December. A study published in late March found that only four of 8,121 fully vaccinated employees at the University of Texas Southwestern medical center in Dallas became infected. But deaths lag behind infections and KHN and the Guardian have tracked more than 400 healthcare worker deaths since the vaccine rollout began.
Many factors contributed to the high toll – but our investigations uncovered some consistent problems that heightened the risks faced by healthcare workers.
Our reporting found that CDC guidance on masks – which encouraged hospitals to reserve high performance N95 masks for intubation procedures and initially suggested surgical masks were adequate for everyday patient care – may have put thousands of health workers at risk.
We exposed how the labor department, run by Trump appointee Eugene Scalia in the early part of the pandemic, took a hands-off approach to workplace safety. We identified 4,100 safety complaints filed by healthcare workers to OSHA, the Labor Department’s workplace safety agency. Most were about PPE shortages, yet even after some complaints were investigated and closed by regulators, workers continued to die at the facilities in question.
We also found that healthcare employers were failing to report worker deaths to OSHA. Our data analysis found that more than a third of workplace Covid deaths were not reported to regulators.
Among the most visceral findings of Lost on the Frontline was the devastating impact of PPE shortages. Adeline Fagan, a 28-year-old OB-GYN resident in Texas, suffered from asthma and had a long history of respiratory ailments.
Months into the pandemic, her family says she was using the same N95 mask over and over, even during a high-risk rotation in the emergency room.
Her parents blame both the hospital administration and government missteps for the PPE shortages that may have contributed to Adeline’s death last October. Her mother, Mary Jane Abt-Fagan, said Adeline’s N95 had been re-used so many times the fibers were beginning to disintegrate.
Not long before she fell ill – and after she’d been assigned to a high risk ER rotation – Adeline talked to her parents about whether she should spend her own money on an expensive N95 with a filter that could be changed daily. The $79 mask was a significant expense on her $52,000 resident’s salary.
“We said you buy this mask, you buy the filters, your father and I will pay for it. We didn’t care what it cost,” said her mother, Abt-Fagan.
She never had the opportunity to use it. By the time the mask arrived, Adeline was already on a ventilator in the hospital.
Fagan’s family feels let down by the US government’s response to the pandemic.
“Nobody chooses to go to work and die,” said Abt-Fagan. “We need to be more prepared, and the government needs to be more responsible in terms of keeping healthcare workers safe.”
Adeline’s father, Brant Fagan, wants the government to begin tracking healthcare worker deaths and examining the data to understand what went wrong. “That’s how we’re going to prevent this in the future, he says. “Know the data, follow where the science leads.”
Adeline’s parents say her death has been particularly painful because of her youth –and all the life milestones she never had the chance to experience. “Falling in love, buying a home, sharing your family and your life with your siblings,” said her mother. “It’s all those things she missed that break a parent’s heart.”
Rates of Parkinson’s disease are exploding. A common chemical may be to blame
Adrienne Matei
THE GUARDIAN
Adrienne Matei
THE GUARDIAN
4/7/2021
Researchers believe a factor is a chemical used in drycleaning and household products such as shoe polishes and carpet cleaners
Researchers believe a factor is a chemical used in drycleaning and household products such as shoe polishes and carpet cleaners
#TCE IS BANNED IN CANADA
‘The EPA estimates that 250 million pounds of TCE are used annually in the US.’
Photograph: Justin Kase/Alamy Stock Photo
Wed 7 Apr 2021
Asked about the future of Parkinson’s disease in the US, Dr Ray Dorsey says, “We’re on the tip of a very, very large iceberg.”
Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinson’s Disease, believes a Parkinson’s epidemic is on the horizon. Parkinson’s is already the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world; in the US, the number of people with Parkinson’s has increased 35% the last 10 years, says Dorsey, and “We think over the next 25 years it will double again.”
Most cases of Parkinson’s disease are considered idiopathic – they lack a clear cause. Yet researchers increasingly believe that one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning and household products such as some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners.
Advertisement
To date, the clearest evidence around the risk of TCE to human health is derived from workers who are exposed to the chemical in the work-place. A 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Neurology, for example, found that TCE is “a risk factor for parkinsonism.” And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding “a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson’s in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).”
Dr Samuel Goldman of The Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale, California, who co-led the study, which appeared in the Annals of Neurology journal, wrote: “Our study confirms that common environmental contaminants may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s, which has considerable public health implications.” It was off the back of studies like these that the US Department of Labor issued a guidance on TCE, saying: “The Board recommends [...] exposures to carbon disulfide (CS2) and trichloroethylene (TCE) be presumed to cause, contribute, or aggravate Parkinsonism.”
TCE is a carcinogen linked to renal cell carcinoma, cancers of the cervix, liver, biliary passages, lymphatic system and male breast tissue, and fetal cardiac defects, among other effects. Its known relationship to Parkinson’s may often be overlooked due to the fact that exposure to TCE can predate the disease’s onset by decades. While some people exposed may sicken quickly, others may unknowingly work or live on contaminated sites for most of their lives before developing symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Those near National Priorities List Superfund sites (sites known to be contaminated with hazardous substances such as TCE) are at especially high risk of exposure. Santa Clara county, California, for example, is home not only to Silicon Valley, but 23 superfund sites – the highest concentration in the country. Google Quad Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found employees of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.
While some countries heavily regulate TCE (its use is banned in the EU without special authorization) the EPA estimates that 250m lb of the chemical are still used annually in the US, and that in 2017, more than 2m lb of it was released into the environment from industrial sites, contaminating air, soil and water. TCE is currently estimated to be present in about 30% of US groundwater (the non-profit Environmental Working Group created its own map of TCE-contaminated water sites nationwide), though researcher Briana de Miranda, a toxicologist who studies TCE at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, says: “We are under-sampling how many people are exposed to TCE. It’s probably a lot more than we guess.”
Under EPA regulations, it’s considered “safe” for TCE to be present in drinking water at a maximum concentration of five parts per billion. In severe cases of contamination, such as that which occurred at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina marine corps, between the 1950s and late 1980s, people are believed to have been exposed to up to 3,400 times the level of contaminants permitted by safety standards. A memorial site known as “Babyland” honors the children of military personnel who died after they or their pregnant mothers were exposed to TCE-tainted water while living on the base.
While De Miranda says researchers do not believe low concentrations of TCE in drinking water specifically are enough to cause illness, Dorsey doesn’t think it’s an overstatement to say US groundwater could be giving people Parkinson’s disease. “Numerous studies have linked well water to Parkinson’s disease, and it’s not just TCE in those cases, it can be pesticides like paraquat, too,” he says, referencing a lethal weedkiller the US still uses despite it being phased out in the EU, Brazil and China.
Using activated carbon filtration devices (like Brita filters) can help reduce TCE in drinking water, yet bathing in contaminated water, as well as inhaling vapours from toxic groundwater and soil, can be far more difficult to avoid.
De Miranda says policy and effective government intervention are crucial when it comes to testing, monitoring and remediating TCE contaminated sites, and that it’s important to raise awareness of TCE’s role in surging rates of Parkinson’s. Failure to address the issue will not only continue to negatively affect people’s health, but will exacerbate the adult home care crisis that has already left 50 million Americans responsible for providing care to sick loved ones, as Parkinson’s is characterized by slow, progressive degeneration and has no cure.
In May 2020, Minnesota became the first state to ban TCE; New York followed suit last December, as should more states, especially as federal action on the issue has lagged. Given the negative health effects of TCE have been documented in the Journal of the American Medical Association since 1932, it’s well past time for the US to stop using it, and to better protect its civilians from hazardous chemicals that put lives at risk.
Adrienne Matei is a freelance journalist
Asked about the future of Parkinson’s disease in the US, Dr Ray Dorsey says, “We’re on the tip of a very, very large iceberg.”
Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinson’s Disease, believes a Parkinson’s epidemic is on the horizon. Parkinson’s is already the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world; in the US, the number of people with Parkinson’s has increased 35% the last 10 years, says Dorsey, and “We think over the next 25 years it will double again.”
Most cases of Parkinson’s disease are considered idiopathic – they lack a clear cause. Yet researchers increasingly believe that one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning and household products such as some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners.
Advertisement
To date, the clearest evidence around the risk of TCE to human health is derived from workers who are exposed to the chemical in the work-place. A 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Neurology, for example, found that TCE is “a risk factor for parkinsonism.” And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding “a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson’s in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).”
Dr Samuel Goldman of The Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale, California, who co-led the study, which appeared in the Annals of Neurology journal, wrote: “Our study confirms that common environmental contaminants may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s, which has considerable public health implications.” It was off the back of studies like these that the US Department of Labor issued a guidance on TCE, saying: “The Board recommends [...] exposures to carbon disulfide (CS2) and trichloroethylene (TCE) be presumed to cause, contribute, or aggravate Parkinsonism.”
TCE is a carcinogen linked to renal cell carcinoma, cancers of the cervix, liver, biliary passages, lymphatic system and male breast tissue, and fetal cardiac defects, among other effects. Its known relationship to Parkinson’s may often be overlooked due to the fact that exposure to TCE can predate the disease’s onset by decades. While some people exposed may sicken quickly, others may unknowingly work or live on contaminated sites for most of their lives before developing symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Those near National Priorities List Superfund sites (sites known to be contaminated with hazardous substances such as TCE) are at especially high risk of exposure. Santa Clara county, California, for example, is home not only to Silicon Valley, but 23 superfund sites – the highest concentration in the country. Google Quad Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found employees of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.
While some countries heavily regulate TCE (its use is banned in the EU without special authorization) the EPA estimates that 250m lb of the chemical are still used annually in the US, and that in 2017, more than 2m lb of it was released into the environment from industrial sites, contaminating air, soil and water. TCE is currently estimated to be present in about 30% of US groundwater (the non-profit Environmental Working Group created its own map of TCE-contaminated water sites nationwide), though researcher Briana de Miranda, a toxicologist who studies TCE at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, says: “We are under-sampling how many people are exposed to TCE. It’s probably a lot more than we guess.”
Under EPA regulations, it’s considered “safe” for TCE to be present in drinking water at a maximum concentration of five parts per billion. In severe cases of contamination, such as that which occurred at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina marine corps, between the 1950s and late 1980s, people are believed to have been exposed to up to 3,400 times the level of contaminants permitted by safety standards. A memorial site known as “Babyland” honors the children of military personnel who died after they or their pregnant mothers were exposed to TCE-tainted water while living on the base.
While De Miranda says researchers do not believe low concentrations of TCE in drinking water specifically are enough to cause illness, Dorsey doesn’t think it’s an overstatement to say US groundwater could be giving people Parkinson’s disease. “Numerous studies have linked well water to Parkinson’s disease, and it’s not just TCE in those cases, it can be pesticides like paraquat, too,” he says, referencing a lethal weedkiller the US still uses despite it being phased out in the EU, Brazil and China.
Using activated carbon filtration devices (like Brita filters) can help reduce TCE in drinking water, yet bathing in contaminated water, as well as inhaling vapours from toxic groundwater and soil, can be far more difficult to avoid.
De Miranda says policy and effective government intervention are crucial when it comes to testing, monitoring and remediating TCE contaminated sites, and that it’s important to raise awareness of TCE’s role in surging rates of Parkinson’s. Failure to address the issue will not only continue to negatively affect people’s health, but will exacerbate the adult home care crisis that has already left 50 million Americans responsible for providing care to sick loved ones, as Parkinson’s is characterized by slow, progressive degeneration and has no cure.
In May 2020, Minnesota became the first state to ban TCE; New York followed suit last December, as should more states, especially as federal action on the issue has lagged. Given the negative health effects of TCE have been documented in the Journal of the American Medical Association since 1932, it’s well past time for the US to stop using it, and to better protect its civilians from hazardous chemicals that put lives at risk.
Adrienne Matei is a freelance journalist
Biden announces sweeping gun reform orders
The White House has announced several executive actions on gun violence after recent mass shootings. Plus, more than 3,600 US healthcare workers died in the first year of the Covid pandemic
The White House announced several executive actions against gun violence yesterday, after mass shootings in the US in recent weeks.
It also said it would nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and gun control advocate, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Key orders from the announcement include:
Rules on unregistered “ghost guns”: The justice department must come up with regulations on unregistered firearms, assembled from parts, in the next month.
Tighter controls on pistols: The department must make sure pistols that are fitted with stabilising braces, essentially turning them into rifles, are regulated under the National Firearms Act. The suspect in the recent shooting in Boulder used an adapted pistol, which are easier to get hold of than rifles.
Resources for prevention measures: Joe Biden will tell agencies to pump more resources into community violence prevention measures, and the justice department to suggest “red flag” laws that give family members steps to take firearms away from those they deem a threat.
Political support: Officials said they would also be encouraging congressional Democrats to pass more regulations on gun control.
GOP CELEBRATES REAL WINNERS OF CIVIL WAR
West Virginia Republicans seek to criminalize removal of Confederate statues
Zack Harold
Nearly 158-years after its founding West Virginia – a state forged from the fires of America’s civil war – remains stuck between north and south. Now lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect Confederate monuments from removal or renaming. Supporters claim they are protecting everyone’s history. Opponents call the bill “traumatic and mentally exhausting”.
West Virginia Republicans seek to criminalize removal of Confederate statues
Zack Harold
Nearly 158-years after its founding West Virginia – a state forged from the fires of America’s civil war – remains stuck between north and south. Now lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect Confederate monuments from removal or renaming. Supporters claim they are protecting everyone’s history. Opponents call the bill “traumatic and mentally exhausting”.
© Photograph: Ty Wright/Getty Images The statue of the Confederate general Thomas Stonewall Jackson stands at the West Virginia capitol in Charleston. A state bill aims to criminalize the removal of Confederate statues.
At a moment of national reckoning on race, the debate is fierce. “We were the Union. West Virginia was born out of seceding from Virginia, if i’m not mistaken,” said Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, one of the state’s few Black lawmakers. “We’re advocating for people who wanted to kill us.”
Related: How Republicans are trying to prevent people from voting after ‘stop the steal’
The bill being considered by West Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature would criminalize the removal of Confederate statues unless that removal is first approved by the state’s historic preservation office.
Last year some 168 Confederate symbols were removed in cities and states across the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the majority after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
The national shift has clearly given impetus to the West Virginia bill. “We’ve seen a lot of attacks on historical monuments and names, and I think West Virginia is uniquely situated, historically, to have an interest in that,” said delegate Chris Phillips, a Republican and the bill’s lead sponsor.
The West Virginia Monument and Memorial Protection Act of 2021 seeks to prevent city councils, county commissions, boards of education, universities and any other public entity from removing statues or renaming structures dedicated to people who participated in a United States military conflict – unless the removal or renaming has been approval by the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office.
The bill would affect monuments to every military conflict in United States history, from the French and Indian war to the second Gulf war. It would also prevent the removal or renaming of monuments to the labor movement, civil rights movement, Native American history or natural disasters.
Anyone who does not go through this process could be fined $500 and spend six months in jail.
Phillips says it’s important to take away local governments’ authority to remove monuments because history belongs to everyone, not just locals.
“If there’s a legitimate desire and need to remove monuments or rename anything in the state, then I think it behooves us to have a process in place that’s calm and thoughtful,” Phillips said. “And have historians involved in it.”
Critics say there’s another motivation behind the bill.
“I don’t see any other reason for it,” said David Fryson, a lawyer and minister who previously served as West Virginia University’s vice-president for diversity, equity and inclusion. “It’s not like we have Nazi monuments in West Virginia. It’s not like we have any other kind of historical challenge. This is all about the Confederate monuments.”
It’s traumatic and mentally exhausting, working for the betterment of all West Virginians and you’re reminded you’re not valuedDelegate Sean Hornbuckle
In particular, Fryson suspects the bill is a response to debates about the monument of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that stands on the West Virginia capitol grounds. Jackson was born in what would become West Virginia, but fought against the state’s creation.
West Virginia was born during the American civil war when state lawmakers from western Virginia decided to remain loyal to the United States as the rest of Virginia seceded to join the Confederacy.
Hornbuckle, a Democrat, echoed Fryson’s concerns during debate about the bill.
“Why this? Why now?” he said. “All of us witnessed back in the summer our country at a boiling point.”
Hornbuckle is also concerned the legislation would strip local governments of the power to make decisions for their communities.
“It’s told the people they don’t matter anymore, and the people here in Charleston are going to make the decision for you,” he said in an interview with the Guardian.
He points to a recent example from his district: students and staff at Marshall University wanted to change the name of the campus education building. It was named for Albert Jenkins, a Marshall alumni and Confederate general whose men captured free Black people in Pennsylvania to sell them into slavery.
The school’s board of governors initially resisted changing the name. They reconsidered after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020 and the protests that followed.
Under Phillips’s bill, the school would not have had the autonomy to change the name.
Hornbuckle attempted to add an amendment to the bill, deleting references to the state historic preservation office and replacing it with “local government municipalities”.
House leadership didn’t even put his amendment to a vote, although Democrats were able to get the bill amended so any citizen could directly petition the historic preservation office to remove a statue or rename a structure. The bill passed the house of delegates with a 70–28 vote. The majority of opposing votes came from Democrats.
Hornbuckle says when the legislature considers changes to the state’s court system, lawmakers rely on the experience of the attorneys in the room. When they work on education bills, they rely on the educators in the chamber.
“But when it’s a bill like this, people are not listening to the historians in the room. Or the people that this impacts the most in this room,” Hornbuckle said. “It’s traumatic and mentally exhausting, working for the betterment of all West Virginians and you’re reminded you’re not valued.”
Phillips insists the bill isn’t racially motivated.
“This isn’t a Confederate protection act that some people try to make it (out to be). I’m truly interested in preserving history,” he said. “I do truly feel there’s a risk of losing historical perspective.”
He credits his own interest in history to seeing a statue of Stonewall Jackson in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the Confederate general’s hometown.
“His military genius is still studied today, and that doesn’t make him admirable for the cause he’s fighting for, but it’s still very important. And certainly very important to West Virginia and the area,” he said.
But David Trowbridge, a Marshall University history professor, says many of the Confederate monuments in West Virginia are themselves an attempt to erase history.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy sponsored a massive monument-raising campaign from the group’s founding in the late 1800s through the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century. The statues and plaques were part of an effort to change the historic narrative about the civil war. They insisted the civil war was not about slavery and that slavery “civilized” African Americans. The group helped to popularize the Gone with the Wind-style image of a glamorous pre-war south and attempted to paint its military leaders as tragic heroes.
“They were attempting to erase history. They wanted to create a false narrative,” Trowbridge said.
Trowbridge created Clio, a location-based app that provides histories of thousands of sites in the United States, written by scholars. According to the Clio entry for the Stonewall Jackson statue that inspired Phillips’s love of history, the monument was erected by the local chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953, just 16 years before the delegate was born.
It is unclear how the monument protection bill will fare in the West Virginia state senate. The legislation has been referred to the senate’s judiciary committee but, as of this writing, the committee has not yet taken action. The legislature’s regular session ends 10April.
Fryson suspects the bill might backfire if passed. When removing a monument becomes an even slower and more frustrating process, members of the public might decide to take direct action.
“It very well could end up being a cause célèbre to pull them down,” Fryson said. “I think people might – and, I suggest, should – resort to civil disobedience.”
At a moment of national reckoning on race, the debate is fierce. “We were the Union. West Virginia was born out of seceding from Virginia, if i’m not mistaken,” said Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, one of the state’s few Black lawmakers. “We’re advocating for people who wanted to kill us.”
Related: How Republicans are trying to prevent people from voting after ‘stop the steal’
The bill being considered by West Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature would criminalize the removal of Confederate statues unless that removal is first approved by the state’s historic preservation office.
Last year some 168 Confederate symbols were removed in cities and states across the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the majority after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
The national shift has clearly given impetus to the West Virginia bill. “We’ve seen a lot of attacks on historical monuments and names, and I think West Virginia is uniquely situated, historically, to have an interest in that,” said delegate Chris Phillips, a Republican and the bill’s lead sponsor.
The West Virginia Monument and Memorial Protection Act of 2021 seeks to prevent city councils, county commissions, boards of education, universities and any other public entity from removing statues or renaming structures dedicated to people who participated in a United States military conflict – unless the removal or renaming has been approval by the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office.
The bill would affect monuments to every military conflict in United States history, from the French and Indian war to the second Gulf war. It would also prevent the removal or renaming of monuments to the labor movement, civil rights movement, Native American history or natural disasters.
Anyone who does not go through this process could be fined $500 and spend six months in jail.
Phillips says it’s important to take away local governments’ authority to remove monuments because history belongs to everyone, not just locals.
“If there’s a legitimate desire and need to remove monuments or rename anything in the state, then I think it behooves us to have a process in place that’s calm and thoughtful,” Phillips said. “And have historians involved in it.”
Critics say there’s another motivation behind the bill.
“I don’t see any other reason for it,” said David Fryson, a lawyer and minister who previously served as West Virginia University’s vice-president for diversity, equity and inclusion. “It’s not like we have Nazi monuments in West Virginia. It’s not like we have any other kind of historical challenge. This is all about the Confederate monuments.”
It’s traumatic and mentally exhausting, working for the betterment of all West Virginians and you’re reminded you’re not valuedDelegate Sean Hornbuckle
In particular, Fryson suspects the bill is a response to debates about the monument of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that stands on the West Virginia capitol grounds. Jackson was born in what would become West Virginia, but fought against the state’s creation.
West Virginia was born during the American civil war when state lawmakers from western Virginia decided to remain loyal to the United States as the rest of Virginia seceded to join the Confederacy.
Hornbuckle, a Democrat, echoed Fryson’s concerns during debate about the bill.
“Why this? Why now?” he said. “All of us witnessed back in the summer our country at a boiling point.”
Hornbuckle is also concerned the legislation would strip local governments of the power to make decisions for their communities.
“It’s told the people they don’t matter anymore, and the people here in Charleston are going to make the decision for you,” he said in an interview with the Guardian.
He points to a recent example from his district: students and staff at Marshall University wanted to change the name of the campus education building. It was named for Albert Jenkins, a Marshall alumni and Confederate general whose men captured free Black people in Pennsylvania to sell them into slavery.
The school’s board of governors initially resisted changing the name. They reconsidered after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020 and the protests that followed.
Under Phillips’s bill, the school would not have had the autonomy to change the name.
Hornbuckle attempted to add an amendment to the bill, deleting references to the state historic preservation office and replacing it with “local government municipalities”.
House leadership didn’t even put his amendment to a vote, although Democrats were able to get the bill amended so any citizen could directly petition the historic preservation office to remove a statue or rename a structure. The bill passed the house of delegates with a 70–28 vote. The majority of opposing votes came from Democrats.
Hornbuckle says when the legislature considers changes to the state’s court system, lawmakers rely on the experience of the attorneys in the room. When they work on education bills, they rely on the educators in the chamber.
“But when it’s a bill like this, people are not listening to the historians in the room. Or the people that this impacts the most in this room,” Hornbuckle said. “It’s traumatic and mentally exhausting, working for the betterment of all West Virginians and you’re reminded you’re not valued.”
Phillips insists the bill isn’t racially motivated.
“This isn’t a Confederate protection act that some people try to make it (out to be). I’m truly interested in preserving history,” he said. “I do truly feel there’s a risk of losing historical perspective.”
He credits his own interest in history to seeing a statue of Stonewall Jackson in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the Confederate general’s hometown.
“His military genius is still studied today, and that doesn’t make him admirable for the cause he’s fighting for, but it’s still very important. And certainly very important to West Virginia and the area,” he said.
But David Trowbridge, a Marshall University history professor, says many of the Confederate monuments in West Virginia are themselves an attempt to erase history.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy sponsored a massive monument-raising campaign from the group’s founding in the late 1800s through the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century. The statues and plaques were part of an effort to change the historic narrative about the civil war. They insisted the civil war was not about slavery and that slavery “civilized” African Americans. The group helped to popularize the Gone with the Wind-style image of a glamorous pre-war south and attempted to paint its military leaders as tragic heroes.
“They were attempting to erase history. They wanted to create a false narrative,” Trowbridge said.
Trowbridge created Clio, a location-based app that provides histories of thousands of sites in the United States, written by scholars. According to the Clio entry for the Stonewall Jackson statue that inspired Phillips’s love of history, the monument was erected by the local chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953, just 16 years before the delegate was born.
It is unclear how the monument protection bill will fare in the West Virginia state senate. The legislation has been referred to the senate’s judiciary committee but, as of this writing, the committee has not yet taken action. The legislature’s regular session ends 10April.
Fryson suspects the bill might backfire if passed. When removing a monument becomes an even slower and more frustrating process, members of the public might decide to take direct action.
“It very well could end up being a cause célèbre to pull them down,” Fryson said. “I think people might – and, I suggest, should – resort to civil disobedience.”
Alberta First Nations say provincially regulated gambling website unauthorized
11 hrs ago
LiCALGARY — Two First Nations are taking the Alberta government and its gaming commission to court over the province's entry into the online gambling sector.
© Provided by The Canadian Press
Play Alberta, a provincially regulated site launched last fall, offers virtual slots and table games while casinos remain shut down due to COVID-19.
Play Alberta, a provincially regulated site launched last fall, offers virtual slots and table games while casinos remain shut down due to COVID-19.
The province has said it expects the site to raise more than $3.7 million in 2021.
The Tsuut'ina and Stoney Nakoda First Nations in southern Alberta want the courts to shut down the site and have filed an application for a judicial review. They argue Alberta's move is an "unauthorized and impermissible" entry into the casino and gaming market.
"As our casinos remain closed during this pandemic, the provincial government through (the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission) has entered the gaming business," said Tsuut'ina Chief Roy Whitney at a news conference Wednesday.
"By entering online gaming, this government is taking away charity dollars, dollars that charities rely upon. For us, these charity dollars are used to support our health, education, housing and social programs."
Tsuut'ina operates the Grey Eagle casino on its land just southwest of Calgary. The Stoney First Nation has the Stoney Nakoda Resort and Casino in Kananaskis Country, a recreational area west of the city.
"Stoney and Tsuut'ina charities will ... not be able meet the needs of our people by losing money to the province," said Chief Clifford Poucette of Stoney Nakoda's Wesley band.
"Seventy-seven per cent of revenue generated for charities in First Nation casinos is spent on housing, infrastructure, education, and health.
"It is unfortunate that the province has put us in this position of having to take this action before the courts. However, this government has simply refused to enter meaningful discussions."
The application argues that the gaming commission has overstepped its jurisdiction by becoming a vendor of casino and gaming products and, as a regulator, is in a direct conflict of interest.
A spokeswoman for the commission said it isn't aware of the nature of the court application and couldn't comment.
But Heather Holmen said the commission recognizes the significant financial impact COVID-19 has had on businesses, charities and individuals.
"Like most jurisdictions in Canada, Alberta has recently started offering online gaming. As in all Canadian jurisdictions, online gaming is conducted and managed by the provincial authorities in accordance with the Criminal Code of Canada," she said in an email.
Brent Dodginghorse, a Tsuut'ina Nation councillor and chief executive officer of Tsuut'ina Gaming, said a moratorium on the creation and granting of new casinos in Alberta has been in place since 2008.
"During COVID, the province has closed casinos for a prolonged period of time, which also ensures that they are the only option available to those who want to play casino games," Dodginghorse said.
"We have taken the business risk of building and operating a casino and agreed to share revenue with the province. It is bad faith for the province to do anything with online revenue other than allocate it proportionately to existing casinos."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2021.
— Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter
Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
NO TRANSPARECY
Canadian Museum of History's CEO resigns amid probe into allegations of workplace harassment
Daniel Leblanc CBC 4/8/2021
Investigation results never made public
Neither the museum nor O'Neill provided additional information on the circumstances surrounding his departure.
In a statement, O'Neill said the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum are among Canada's "great cultural institutions."
"It was an honour to lead them, in service to our country. Over 33 years in the public service, I was privileged to work with some extraordinary people. Canadians should be grateful for their talent, commitment and effort," O'Neill said.
O'Neill went on sick leave shortly after the complaint was filed last summer.
The allegations were investigated by lawyer Michelle Flaherty, who finished her report into the matter in January. The museum's board of trustees provided the report to the government along with a single recommendation.
The report and the board's recommendation were never made public.
A spokesperson for Guilbeault's office said last month that legal considerations prevented it from providing further explanations to the public.
"The applicable law in such matters dictates adherence to a defined process and protects all parties involved by requiring its confidentiality," said Guilbeault's press secretary, Camille Gagné-Raynauld. "Our government intends to comply with all of its obligations, both in terms of complaint handling and the confidentiality of the process."
The federal government has recently dealt with allegations of harassment and toxic workplaces at Rideau Hall, which led to the resignation of now former governor general Julie Payette, as well as in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Canadian Museum of History's CEO resigns amid probe into allegations of workplace harassment
Daniel Leblanc CBC 4/8/2021
© Canadian Museum of History Mark O'Neill, CEO of the Canadian Museum of History, resigned from his position on Wednesday, just two months before his mandate was set to end. He had been at the centre of a workplace harassment investigation.
The CEO of the Canadian Museum of History, who was at the centre of a workplace harassment investigation, has resigned just two months before his official retirement date.
Mark O'Neill was the subject of a complaint last summer that prompted the investigation. Sources have told Radio-Canada that the complaint was related to O'Neill's management style and his temperament.
The investigation was finished in late January and submitted to Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault.
The federal government has not provided an update to the public on the situation at the museum or its response to the investigation.
O'Neill's departure was confirmed by the museum in a statement on Wednesday.
"The board of trustees of the Canadian Museum of History has received the resignation of museum director Mark O'Neill, effective April 6. A permanent director of the Canadian Museum of History is expected to be appointed soon," said Bill Walker, a spokesperson for the museum.
O'Neill was named president and CEO of the Museum of History in 2011. His second five-year mandate was due to end in June this year.
The CEO of the Canadian Museum of History, who was at the centre of a workplace harassment investigation, has resigned just two months before his official retirement date.
Mark O'Neill was the subject of a complaint last summer that prompted the investigation. Sources have told Radio-Canada that the complaint was related to O'Neill's management style and his temperament.
The investigation was finished in late January and submitted to Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault.
The federal government has not provided an update to the public on the situation at the museum or its response to the investigation.
O'Neill's departure was confirmed by the museum in a statement on Wednesday.
"The board of trustees of the Canadian Museum of History has received the resignation of museum director Mark O'Neill, effective April 6. A permanent director of the Canadian Museum of History is expected to be appointed soon," said Bill Walker, a spokesperson for the museum.
O'Neill was named president and CEO of the Museum of History in 2011. His second five-year mandate was due to end in June this year.
Investigation results never made public
Neither the museum nor O'Neill provided additional information on the circumstances surrounding his departure.
In a statement, O'Neill said the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum are among Canada's "great cultural institutions."
"It was an honour to lead them, in service to our country. Over 33 years in the public service, I was privileged to work with some extraordinary people. Canadians should be grateful for their talent, commitment and effort," O'Neill said.
O'Neill went on sick leave shortly after the complaint was filed last summer.
The allegations were investigated by lawyer Michelle Flaherty, who finished her report into the matter in January. The museum's board of trustees provided the report to the government along with a single recommendation.
The report and the board's recommendation were never made public.
A spokesperson for Guilbeault's office said last month that legal considerations prevented it from providing further explanations to the public.
"The applicable law in such matters dictates adherence to a defined process and protects all parties involved by requiring its confidentiality," said Guilbeault's press secretary, Camille Gagné-Raynauld. "Our government intends to comply with all of its obligations, both in terms of complaint handling and the confidentiality of the process."
The federal government has recently dealt with allegations of harassment and toxic workplaces at Rideau Hall, which led to the resignation of now former governor general Julie Payette, as well as in the Canadian Armed Forces.
#UBI CANADA
Parliamentary budget officer says basic income program could halve poverty rate
Parliamentary budget officer says basic income program could halve poverty rate
OTTAWA — The pressure on the federal Liberal government to introduce a universal basic income ratcheted up a notch Wednesday with a report from the parliamentary budget officer that suggests it could cut poverty rates in Canada by almost half in one year
.
© Provided by The Canadian Press
The report landed just one day before the opening of a three-day virtual Liberal convention, where Liberal MPs and grassroots party members from east to west are pushing the idea in top priority policy resolutions.
However, the hefty price tag — estimated by budget officer Yves Giroux at $85 billion in 2021-22, rising to $93 billion in 2025-26 — is likely to reinforce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's view that now is not the time to embark on a costly new program.
Giroux concluded that the federal government could almost halve poverty rates if it launched a basic income program similar to one previously studied in Ontario.
Although nationally the drop in poverty rates under such a measure would be about 49 per cent, the reductions would vary across provinces.
Giroux estimated that poverty rates could fall as much as 61.9 per cent in Manitoba or as little as 13.5 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador.
At its core, a basic or guaranteed income would provide a no-strings-attached minimum income to citizens.
Under the Ontario model, people would receive a benefit to bring their income about three-quarters of the way up to the poverty line, with payments rolled back by 50 cents for every dollar earned above that level.
That would amount to a $17,000-benefit for a single person or $24,000 for a couple,
The Ontario experiment, which federal officials monitored closely, was ended early with a change of government in Ontario.
The budget officer's report updated his projections from last summer about the cost of a basic income program and details the financial ripple effect across households and workers.
Gallery: The biggest tax havens in the world (Espresso)
Driving his work were questions from parliamentarians about the effects of a basic income program, which has picked up political traction over the last year as the COVID-19 pandemic put the economy into a tailspin. At its worst, the pandemic cost the country about three million jobs and reduced hours and incomes for 2.5 million more.
The grassroots of both the Liberal and New Democratic parties have put forward resolutions at their respective policy conventions this weekend to make a basic income a core policy.
Toronto Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who has championed the basic income idea within the governing party's caucus, acknowledged the government will likely balk at the stiff price tag when it's facing an unprecedented, pandemic-induced deficit approaching $400 billion.
But he said the budget officer's cost estimate doesn't factor in things like the cost of poverty or the savings that could be incurred by rolling some existing federal income supports, like the GST tax credit or the Canada Workers Benefit, into a basic income program. Provinces could also save money by reducing their social assistance programs.
"I do think we have to take this idea of reinventing our social safety net seriously," Erskine-Smith said.
"I think we have to learn the lessons of the pandemic," he added, noting that "our social safety net wasn't fit for purpose at a time when many Canadians needed it." He said many would have been left behind if the government had not hastily created the Canada Emergency Response Benefit to keep them afloat.
While he wants a universal basic income to be the long-term goal, Erskine-Smith said in the meantime he hopes the government will build towards that by increasing the Canada Child Benefit, the workers benefit and the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.
For the most part, Giroux estimated a basic income would increase disposable income for those at the bottom of the income scale by 17.5 per cent, or just over $4,500, while those higher up the earnings scale would see their incomes drop slightly.
The reason for the drop would be another caveat in the modelling, that the federal government would remove refundable and non-refundable tax credits aimed at fighting poverty.
Overall, Giroux's report said more than 6.4 million people would see their disposable income rise as a result of a basic income program, on average by 49.6 per cent, while 16.8 million more would have their net income fall by 5.4 per cent.
Giroux's report also said that the interaction between tax rates, elimination of credits and earnings as part of basic income would make some workers rethink taking on additional employment hours if it meant losing income through a combination of paying more taxes and receiving fewer benefit dollars.
He estimated that overall, employees would reduce their hours worked by 1.3 per cent nationally, which would cost federal coffers between $3 billion and $3.3 billion annually over a five-year stretch due to lost revenues.
Erskine-Smith said that relatively small impact should "allay that myth really about basic income to suggest that it's a disincentive to work."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2021.
Jordan Press and Joan Bryden, The Canadian
The report landed just one day before the opening of a three-day virtual Liberal convention, where Liberal MPs and grassroots party members from east to west are pushing the idea in top priority policy resolutions.
However, the hefty price tag — estimated by budget officer Yves Giroux at $85 billion in 2021-22, rising to $93 billion in 2025-26 — is likely to reinforce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's view that now is not the time to embark on a costly new program.
Giroux concluded that the federal government could almost halve poverty rates if it launched a basic income program similar to one previously studied in Ontario.
Although nationally the drop in poverty rates under such a measure would be about 49 per cent, the reductions would vary across provinces.
Giroux estimated that poverty rates could fall as much as 61.9 per cent in Manitoba or as little as 13.5 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador.
At its core, a basic or guaranteed income would provide a no-strings-attached minimum income to citizens.
Under the Ontario model, people would receive a benefit to bring their income about three-quarters of the way up to the poverty line, with payments rolled back by 50 cents for every dollar earned above that level.
That would amount to a $17,000-benefit for a single person or $24,000 for a couple,
The Ontario experiment, which federal officials monitored closely, was ended early with a change of government in Ontario.
The budget officer's report updated his projections from last summer about the cost of a basic income program and details the financial ripple effect across households and workers.
Gallery: The biggest tax havens in the world (Espresso)
Driving his work were questions from parliamentarians about the effects of a basic income program, which has picked up political traction over the last year as the COVID-19 pandemic put the economy into a tailspin. At its worst, the pandemic cost the country about three million jobs and reduced hours and incomes for 2.5 million more.
The grassroots of both the Liberal and New Democratic parties have put forward resolutions at their respective policy conventions this weekend to make a basic income a core policy.
Toronto Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who has championed the basic income idea within the governing party's caucus, acknowledged the government will likely balk at the stiff price tag when it's facing an unprecedented, pandemic-induced deficit approaching $400 billion.
But he said the budget officer's cost estimate doesn't factor in things like the cost of poverty or the savings that could be incurred by rolling some existing federal income supports, like the GST tax credit or the Canada Workers Benefit, into a basic income program. Provinces could also save money by reducing their social assistance programs.
"I do think we have to take this idea of reinventing our social safety net seriously," Erskine-Smith said.
"I think we have to learn the lessons of the pandemic," he added, noting that "our social safety net wasn't fit for purpose at a time when many Canadians needed it." He said many would have been left behind if the government had not hastily created the Canada Emergency Response Benefit to keep them afloat.
While he wants a universal basic income to be the long-term goal, Erskine-Smith said in the meantime he hopes the government will build towards that by increasing the Canada Child Benefit, the workers benefit and the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.
For the most part, Giroux estimated a basic income would increase disposable income for those at the bottom of the income scale by 17.5 per cent, or just over $4,500, while those higher up the earnings scale would see their incomes drop slightly.
The reason for the drop would be another caveat in the modelling, that the federal government would remove refundable and non-refundable tax credits aimed at fighting poverty.
Overall, Giroux's report said more than 6.4 million people would see their disposable income rise as a result of a basic income program, on average by 49.6 per cent, while 16.8 million more would have their net income fall by 5.4 per cent.
Giroux's report also said that the interaction between tax rates, elimination of credits and earnings as part of basic income would make some workers rethink taking on additional employment hours if it meant losing income through a combination of paying more taxes and receiving fewer benefit dollars.
He estimated that overall, employees would reduce their hours worked by 1.3 per cent nationally, which would cost federal coffers between $3 billion and $3.3 billion annually over a five-year stretch due to lost revenues.
Erskine-Smith said that relatively small impact should "allay that myth really about basic income to suggest that it's a disincentive to work."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2021.
Jordan Press and Joan Bryden, The Canadian
Biden restores $200m in US aid to Palestinians slashed by Trump
Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem
Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem
THE GUARDIAN, 4/8/2021
The US will restore more than $200m in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty
The US will restore more than $200m in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty
.
© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters
“[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.
The aid includes $75m in economic and development funds for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which will provide food and clean water to Palestinians and help small businesses. A further $150m will be provided to UNRWA, a UN body that supports more than 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region.
After Donald Trump’s row with the Palestinian leadership, President Joe Biden has sought to restart Washington’s flailing efforts to push for a two-state resolution for the Israel-Palestinian crisis, and restoring the aid is part of that. In his statement, Blinken said US foreign assistance “serves important US interests and values”.
© Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters A Palestinian aid worker prepares food supplies at a UNRWA distribution centre in Gaza.
“The United States is committed to advancing prosperity, security, and freedom for both Israelis and Palestinians in tangible ways in the immediate term, which is important in its own right, but also as a means to advance towards a negotiated two-state solution,” he said.
Palestinian leaders and the UN welcomed the resumption of aid. Israel, however, criticised the decision to restore funds to UNRWA, a body it has long claimed is a bloated, flawed group.
“We believe that this UN agency for so-called refugees should not exist in its current format,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan. Pro-Israel US lawmakers joined the country in opposition to the aid and said they would scrutinise it in Congress.
From 2018, Trump gradually cut virtually all US money to Palestinian aid projects after the Palestinian leadership accused him of being biased towards Israel and refused to talk. The US president accused Palestinians of lacking “appreciation or respect”.
The former president cancelled more than $200m in economic aid, including $25m earmarked for underfunded East Jerusalem hospitals that have suffered during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump’s cuts to UNRWA, which also serves Palestinian refugees in war-stricken Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, was described by the agency’s then head as “the biggest and most severe” funding crisis since the body was created in 1949. The US was previously UNRWA’s biggest donor.
Related: People in Gaza sifting through rubbish for food, UN head says
To outcry from aid workers, leaked emails suggested the move may have partly been a political tactic to weaken the Palestinian leadership. Those emails alleged that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had argued that “ending the assistance outright could strengthen his negotiating hand” to push Palestinians to accept their blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
The cuts were decried as catastrophic for Palestinians’ ability to provide basic healthcare, schooling and sanitation, including prominent Israeli establishment figures.
Last April, as the coronavirus pandemic hit, Trump’s government announced it would send money to Palestinians. The $5m one-off donation was roughly 1% of the amount Washington provided a year before Trump began slashing aid.
“[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.
The aid includes $75m in economic and development funds for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which will provide food and clean water to Palestinians and help small businesses. A further $150m will be provided to UNRWA, a UN body that supports more than 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region.
After Donald Trump’s row with the Palestinian leadership, President Joe Biden has sought to restart Washington’s flailing efforts to push for a two-state resolution for the Israel-Palestinian crisis, and restoring the aid is part of that. In his statement, Blinken said US foreign assistance “serves important US interests and values”.
© Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters A Palestinian aid worker prepares food supplies at a UNRWA distribution centre in Gaza.“The United States is committed to advancing prosperity, security, and freedom for both Israelis and Palestinians in tangible ways in the immediate term, which is important in its own right, but also as a means to advance towards a negotiated two-state solution,” he said.
Palestinian leaders and the UN welcomed the resumption of aid. Israel, however, criticised the decision to restore funds to UNRWA, a body it has long claimed is a bloated, flawed group.
“We believe that this UN agency for so-called refugees should not exist in its current format,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan. Pro-Israel US lawmakers joined the country in opposition to the aid and said they would scrutinise it in Congress.
From 2018, Trump gradually cut virtually all US money to Palestinian aid projects after the Palestinian leadership accused him of being biased towards Israel and refused to talk. The US president accused Palestinians of lacking “appreciation or respect”.
The former president cancelled more than $200m in economic aid, including $25m earmarked for underfunded East Jerusalem hospitals that have suffered during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump’s cuts to UNRWA, which also serves Palestinian refugees in war-stricken Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, was described by the agency’s then head as “the biggest and most severe” funding crisis since the body was created in 1949. The US was previously UNRWA’s biggest donor.
Related: People in Gaza sifting through rubbish for food, UN head says
To outcry from aid workers, leaked emails suggested the move may have partly been a political tactic to weaken the Palestinian leadership. Those emails alleged that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had argued that “ending the assistance outright could strengthen his negotiating hand” to push Palestinians to accept their blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
The cuts were decried as catastrophic for Palestinians’ ability to provide basic healthcare, schooling and sanitation, including prominent Israeli establishment figures.
Last April, as the coronavirus pandemic hit, Trump’s government announced it would send money to Palestinians. The $5m one-off donation was roughly 1% of the amount Washington provided a year before Trump began slashing aid.
A bold fix for US international taxation of corporations
Philip G. Cohen, opinion contributor
Philip G. Cohen, opinion contributor
THE HILL, 4/7/2021
Both the Biden administration, through its just announced "The Made in America Tax Plan," and several senators, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Mark Warner (D-VA), are trying to revamp the complicated, and to some extent, flawed changes made to the U.S. international tax system in 2017 by the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Both the Biden administration, through its just announced "The Made in America Tax Plan," and several senators, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Mark Warner (D-VA), are trying to revamp the complicated, and to some extent, flawed changes made to the U.S. international tax system in 2017 by the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
© Getty Images A bold fix for US international taxation of corporations
The target of this effort should be to encourage corporations to keep and create new good paying jobs in the United States, to avoid tax barriers to repatriation of offshore profits and to prevent U.S. taxation from making U.S. companies noncompetitive with their foreign rivals.
While the international tax changes made by the act may have addressed the latter two goals, it has failed at the first and presumably the most important objective, which Senator Wyden stated during a March Senate Finance Committee Hearing "is a need to make sure the best research and manufacturing is done in America."
To that end, I propose the U.S. should repeal the global intangible low taxed income provision altogether coupled with the removal of the participation exemption, both enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Under the participation exemption, most dividends made from foreign subsidiaries to the U.S. parent company are entitled to a 100 percent dividends received deduction, thus permanently avoiding U.S. taxation.
These two features of the act should be replaced with a worldwide tax system, wherein profits of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations are taxed to the corporate parent when they are earned, but coupled with both a U.S. corporate tax rate a few points lower than that for domestic profits as well as the reenactment of a credit for foreign income taxes paid by a foreign subsidiary. Thus, for example, if the normal U.S. corporate tax rate was increased from the current 21 percent rate to 28 percent (which the Biden administration is proposing) foreign earnings might be subject to a rate of about 22 percent.
The Biden administration has recommended modifying the global intangible low taxed income provision by increasing the tax rate U.S. corporations pay for certain amounts earned by their controlled foreign corporations. It also recommends modifying it to eliminate a taxpayer favorable reduction of what is deemed taxable to the U.S. multinational corporations under the provision.
Furthermore, the plan contains a country-by-country element to calculations to attempt to better capture profits in tax haven jurisdictions. There seems to be a fixation on rectifying the global intangible low taxed income provision rather than fundamentally revamping the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act methodology for addressing international taxation which includes doing away with the participation exemption.
When the global intangible low taxed income provision was originally enacted, it was supposed to prevent U.S. companies from migrating profits and jobs overseas. It has failed in this regard. During the March Senate Finance Committee Kimberly Clausing, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary, Tax Analysis, testified that the international tax system post-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act "definitely rewards offshoring" of jobs and profits. According to a recent report by the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCX 16-21), the Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduced the average U.S. tax rate paid by the largest U.S. corporations by more than half.
While the Biden administration initiative would, if enacted, likely make the global intangible low taxed income provision somewhat more effective, renovating the provision is not the approach that should be undertaken. This is akin to trying to plug a leaking dyke when the architectural plans for the structure were improper.
The proposal I am making admittedly doesn't fully achieve all three targets in full. It would, however, prevent the lock-out effect existing before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that fostered a system wherein U.S. companies kept low taxed earnings of their foreign subsidiaries offshore. At the same time, this plan will keep U.S. companies somewhat competitive with their foreign rivals, with respect to tax, although not as good as what they enjoy today.
Foreign companies organized in countries with a territorial system exempting home countries from taxation of foreign subsidiary earnings will still be somewhat advantaged. Most importantly, adoption of this reform to our tax system will result in a sharply reduced incentive to shift operations outside the U.S.
Philip G. Cohen is a professor of Taxation, Pace University's Lubin School of Business & a retired vice president-Tax & General Tax Counsel at Unilever United States, Inc. The views expressed herein don't necessarily represent any organization to which he is or was associated with.
The target of this effort should be to encourage corporations to keep and create new good paying jobs in the United States, to avoid tax barriers to repatriation of offshore profits and to prevent U.S. taxation from making U.S. companies noncompetitive with their foreign rivals.
While the international tax changes made by the act may have addressed the latter two goals, it has failed at the first and presumably the most important objective, which Senator Wyden stated during a March Senate Finance Committee Hearing "is a need to make sure the best research and manufacturing is done in America."
To that end, I propose the U.S. should repeal the global intangible low taxed income provision altogether coupled with the removal of the participation exemption, both enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Under the participation exemption, most dividends made from foreign subsidiaries to the U.S. parent company are entitled to a 100 percent dividends received deduction, thus permanently avoiding U.S. taxation.
These two features of the act should be replaced with a worldwide tax system, wherein profits of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations are taxed to the corporate parent when they are earned, but coupled with both a U.S. corporate tax rate a few points lower than that for domestic profits as well as the reenactment of a credit for foreign income taxes paid by a foreign subsidiary. Thus, for example, if the normal U.S. corporate tax rate was increased from the current 21 percent rate to 28 percent (which the Biden administration is proposing) foreign earnings might be subject to a rate of about 22 percent.
The Biden administration has recommended modifying the global intangible low taxed income provision by increasing the tax rate U.S. corporations pay for certain amounts earned by their controlled foreign corporations. It also recommends modifying it to eliminate a taxpayer favorable reduction of what is deemed taxable to the U.S. multinational corporations under the provision.
Furthermore, the plan contains a country-by-country element to calculations to attempt to better capture profits in tax haven jurisdictions. There seems to be a fixation on rectifying the global intangible low taxed income provision rather than fundamentally revamping the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act methodology for addressing international taxation which includes doing away with the participation exemption.
When the global intangible low taxed income provision was originally enacted, it was supposed to prevent U.S. companies from migrating profits and jobs overseas. It has failed in this regard. During the March Senate Finance Committee Kimberly Clausing, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary, Tax Analysis, testified that the international tax system post-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act "definitely rewards offshoring" of jobs and profits. According to a recent report by the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCX 16-21), the Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduced the average U.S. tax rate paid by the largest U.S. corporations by more than half.
While the Biden administration initiative would, if enacted, likely make the global intangible low taxed income provision somewhat more effective, renovating the provision is not the approach that should be undertaken. This is akin to trying to plug a leaking dyke when the architectural plans for the structure were improper.
The proposal I am making admittedly doesn't fully achieve all three targets in full. It would, however, prevent the lock-out effect existing before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that fostered a system wherein U.S. companies kept low taxed earnings of their foreign subsidiaries offshore. At the same time, this plan will keep U.S. companies somewhat competitive with their foreign rivals, with respect to tax, although not as good as what they enjoy today.
Foreign companies organized in countries with a territorial system exempting home countries from taxation of foreign subsidiary earnings will still be somewhat advantaged. Most importantly, adoption of this reform to our tax system will result in a sharply reduced incentive to shift operations outside the U.S.
Philip G. Cohen is a professor of Taxation, Pace University's Lubin School of Business & a retired vice president-Tax & General Tax Counsel at Unilever United States, Inc. The views expressed herein don't necessarily represent any organization to which he is or was associated with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)