ARYAN SUPREMACISTS EXPLOIT DALITS IN USA
Suit: Workers lured from India paid $1.20 per hour for years

FBI agents were at a large Hindu temple in New Jersey on Tuesday as a new lawsuit claimed it was built by workers from marginalized communities in India who were lured to the U.S. and forced to work long hours for just a few dollars per day.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The lawsuit accuses the leaders of the Hindu organization known as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, of human trafficking and wage law violations.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed that agents were at the temple on “court-authorized law enforcement activity,” but wouldn't elaborate. One of the attorneys who filed the suit said some workers had been removed from the site Tuesday.

The lawsuit says more than 200 workers — many or all of whom don't speak English — were coerced into signing employment agreements in India. They traveled to New Jersey under R-1 visas, which are meant for “those who minister, or work in religious vocations or occupations,” according to the lawsuit.

When they arrived, the lawsuit says, their passports were taken away and they were forced to work at the temple from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. with few days off, for about $450 per month a rate that the suit said came out to around $1.20 per hour. Of that, the workers allegedly only received $50 in cash per month, with the rest deposited into their accounts in India.

According to the lawsuit, the exploited workers were Dalits — members of the lowest step of South Asia's caste hierarchy.

An attorney representing several of the workers, Daniel Werner, called it “shocking that this happens in our backyard.”

“It is even more disturbing that it has gone on for years in New Jersey behind the temple’s walls,” Werner, of Decatur, Georgia, said Tuesday outside the gates of the complex. He said some workers were on the site for a year, two years or even longer, and were not allowed to leave unless accompanied by somebody from BAPS.

BAPS CEO Kanu Patel, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told The New York Times, “I respectfully disagree with the wage claim.”

A spokesperson for the organization, Matthew Frankel, told The Associated Press that BAPS was first made aware of the accusations early Tuesday morning.

“We are taking them very seriously and thoroughly reviewing the issues raised,” he said.

The ornate temple, known as a mandir, is made of Italian and Indian marble, and sits on 162 acres (65 hectares) in Robbinsville, outside Trenton.

The lawsuit said workers lived in a fenced-in compound where their movements were monitored by cameras and guards. They were told that if they left, police would arrest them because they didn't have their passports, the suit said.

The lawsuit names Patel and several individuals described as having supervised the workers. It seeks unpaid wages and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

D.B. Sagar, president of the Washington-based International Commission for Dalit Rights, told The Associated Press that Dalits are an easy target for exploitation because they’re the poorest people in India.

“They need something to survive, to protect their family,” Sagar — a Dalit himself — said, adding that if the allegations in the lawsuit are true, they amount to “modern-day slavery.”

BAPS is a global sect of Hinduism founded in the early 20th century and aims to “preserve Indian culture and the Hindu ideals of faith, unity, and selfless service,” according to its website. The organization says it has built more than 1,100 mandirs — often large complexes that essentially function as community centers.

BAPS is known for community service and philanthropy, taking an active role in the diaspora’s initiative to help India amid the current COVID-19 surge. But it also is linked to contentious issues in India, publicly supporting and funding the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, built on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu nationalists.

India’s right-wing prime minister, Narendra Modi, has close ties to the organization and one of its transformative leaders, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, who died in 2016.

The ongoing construction on the mandir in Robbinsville began in 2010, and the site has caught the attention of state and federal authorities in recent years.

Last month, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued a stop-work order against a Newark-based construction company whose projects included the BAPS temple in Robbinsville.

An investigation found the company, Cunha Construction, was paying workers in cash off the books and didn’t have workers’ compensation insurance, according to a release. A phone listed for the company rang unanswered Tuesday. It’s not named in the lawsuit.

In 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated after a Pennsylvania teenager was killed in a fall while volunteering at the site.

According to the website for the Robbinsville mandir, its construction “is the epitome of volunteerism.”

“Volunteers of all ages have devoted their time and resources from the beginning: assisting in the construction work, cleaning up around the site, preparing food for all the artisans on a daily basis and helping with other tasks,” the website says. “A total of 4.7 million man hours were required by craftsman and volunteers to complete the Mandir.”

___

Associated Press writer Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

David Porter And Mallika Sen, The Associated Press

SEE HINDUISM IS FASCISM

Mexico scraps tainted GM union vote, U.S. lawmakers warn of labor abuses

By Daina Beth Solomon and David Shepardson 

  

© Reuters/REBECCA COOK FILE PHOTO: Logo of GM atop the company headquarters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican authorities on Tuesday ordered the General Motors Co union in the city of Silao to repeat a worker vote following pressure from U.S. lawmakers for the automaker to address alleged abuses that could potentially violate a new trade deal.

Mexico's labor ministry said it found "serious irregularities" in last month's vote, which is required under a Mexican labor reform to ensure workers are not bound to contracts that are signed behind their backs and keep wages low.

Such votes are part of Mexico's broader effort to uphold worker rights as part of a new free trade pact that replaces NAFTA.

The concerns over GM come amid various complaints in recent days regarding Mexican workplace abuses, just as U.S. activists and politicians begin to flex new powers to enforce labor standards south of the border enshrined in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The largest U.S. labor federation, the AFL-CIO, on Monday urged the U.S. government to file a complaint under USMCA against Tridonex, an auto-parts plant in the Mexican border city of Matamoros where it said workers have been blocked from electing an independent union.

In the GM case, some ballots were destroyed during the union-led vote, Mexico's labor ministry found. It also said the union, which is part of the powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), refused to give labor inspectors documentation of the vote tally.

U.S. representatives Dan Kildee, Bill Pascrell and Earl Blumenauer, all Democrats, called on GM to answer questions about potential abuses.

The largest U.S. automaker "has a responsibility to speak out against violations of labor and human rights abuses at the Silao GM plant," they said in a letter to GM Chief Executive Mary Barra.

The lawmakers also cited news reports indicating that GM officials had removed independent inspectors, among other intimidation tactics targeting workers.

GM has denied wrongdoing, and said government-approved inspectors were not prevented from entering the voting site. It also said it condemned labor rights violations and had hired a third-party firm to review the matter.

GM's union must hold a new vote within 30 days, the ministry said, after the initial vote "violated principles of safety and certainty."

Hugo Varela, head of the CTM in Guanajuato state, where the Silao plant is located, did not respond to a request for comment on the labor ministry's order.

He previously said that CTM was committed to complying with the law and keeping jobs in Mexico.

A spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office declined to comment on GM.

The disputed vote at Silao, which employs some 6,000 people, came several days before GM said it would invest $1 billion in an electric vehicle manufacturing complex in Mexico, triggering criticism from the United Auto Workers.

UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg told Reuters separately this week that it was "concerned and is having appropriate discussions" about the Mexico vote.

In addition, Geneva-based IndustriALL Global Unions and Toronto-based Unifor said in letters to GM President Mark Reuss last week that the incident appeared to violate the USMCA and urged GM to protect workers.

Unifor's president, Jerry Dias, expressed his "outrage" at the situation and said he would explore "all available avenues" to uphold worker rights in Mexico, including dispute resolution tools under the USMCA.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico CityAdditional reporting by Sharay Angulo and Anthony Esposito in Mexico City, Ben Klayman in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool and Stephen Coates)

Gig-economy riders in Spain must become staff within 90 days under new rule

© Reuters/Albert Gea FILE PHOTO: Glovo deliver rider passes by a pedestrian area in Barcelona

MADRID (Reuters) -Food delivery companies based in Spain have three months to employ their couriers as staff under new rules approved on Tuesday by the government, one of the first laws in Europe regarding gig-economy workers' rights.

The decree aims to clarify the legal situation of thousands of riders after Spain's Supreme Court ruled last year that companies must hire them as employees.

"The regulation approved today ... places us at the forefront of a technological change that cannot leave labour rights behind," Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz said.

A debate on how to regulate workers' rights in the gig economy is unfolding globally. The European Commission has opened a public consultation period on potential EU-wide rules.

The new Spanish rules came into force immediately, with companies being given 90 days to comply. According to the labour ministry's calculations, nearly 17,000 riders without a contract have already been identified.

Uber criticised the new regulation

"This regulation will directly hurt thousands of couriers who use food delivery apps for much-needed flexible earnings opportunities and made it clear they do not want to be classified as employees," a spokesman said.

"The decree approved today by the cabinet is a hard blow for the future of the digital economy in Spain", according to Adigital, a business industry association that represent gig economy companies including Spanish start-up Glovo and Deliveroo.

Although the legislation makes it harder for companies to have freelance couriers, closing the door on a common practice, several riders' associations and labour experts have said it does not completely resolve their legal situation, anticipating further potential court battles.

In any case, most delivery companies have already started preparing for the change, looking for new business models that will allow them to be profitable.

Just-Eat, the Spanish branch of Take Away, has already hired some of its workers and covers peak demand with workers from transport companies.

Others, such as Glovo, have opted to hire some riders through temporary employment agencies, according to riders.

The government also approved new rules obliging companies to explain to their staff how their workload-sharing algorithms work.

This transparency requirement will affect all platforms, not just food delivery companies.

"Workers have the right to know what motivates business decisions," said Diaz. "Algorithms are going to be put at the service of the majority."

(Reporting by Belén Carreño and Joan FausWriting by Belén CarreñoEditing by Ingrid Melander and Estelle Shirbon)

Spain adopts landmark law to protect 'gig' delivery workers

MADRID (AP) — Spain approved a pioneering law Tuesday that gives delivery platforms a mid-August deadline to hire workers currently freelancing for them and that requires transparency of artificial intelligence used to manage workforces.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The royal decree passed by the center-left ruling coalition immediately affects some 30,000 couriers. It comes in the wake of a ruling by Spain’s top court last year and at a time when other countries in Europe and elsewhere are deciding on a labor model for the so-called gig economy, which is often blamed for precarious jobs and low salaries.

That's because, until now, gig and other contractor workers had to pay social security fees from their own pockets if they wanted to receive benefits including unemployment subsidies and a public pension.

App-based food delivery businesses say that the law threatens a 700-million-euro ($851 million) industry in Spain, and some of the couriers took to the streets on Tuesday in different cities because they say that remaining self-employed benefits them.

Francisco López, 37, said he was making 2,400 euros ($2,900) per month working an average of seven hours every seven days of the week, more than he could have made at his previous job at Barcelona.

“A lot of us have families and children. By working for more than one company we can adjust our schedule. The rates are currently not the best, but they do offer us an economic cushion,” said López, who has managed to send remittances to his relatives in Colombia during the pandemic.

But Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz said Spain was “at the vanguard” in taking legislation on the relationship between delivery platforms and their workforce.

“The world is looking at us,” Díaz told reporters following a weekly Cabinet meeting and adding that it reflected the “new winds” that, across the world, deliver welfare to citizens.

In the United States, Joe Biden’s government has rolled back on a rule from his predecessor’s administration that would have made it easier to classify workers as independent contractors, blocking a change supported by delivery and ride-hailing services. The executive branch of the European Union is also currently consulting with the public on potential rules that could be applied across the bloc.

The Spanish government’s decree doesn't need parliamentary approval and is the result of an agreement with the country’s main workers’ unions and industry associations, although smaller groups representing the interests of the food delivery platforms claim they have been sidelined in the negotiations.

APS, which groups on-demand service providers Deliveroo, Stuart, Glovo and Uber Eats, the main players in the food delivery market, condemned the government's move.

“While Spain claims to be a start-up nation, this is the first law in Europe that forces a technological company to disclose its algorithms,” said APS in a statement.

During negotiations, the government agreed to initially restrict the need for work contracts to delivery companies operating digital platforms. That leaves out the domestic care and cleaning services industries where the gig work model is also spreading.

The law makes mandatory for all businesses the ground-breaking requirement of having to hand over to the workers’ legal representatives information about how algorithms and artificial intelligence systems function in assigning jobs and assessing performance, among other aspects.

“Workers cannot lose their soul on the keyboard of our laptops or on electronic gadgets,” Díaz said.

Uber said that the regulation would hurt the couriers "who use food delivery apps for much-needed flexible earning opportunities” and also the restaurant industry in Spain which, amid the coronavirus pandemic, is increasingly relying on delivery to make ends meet.

“We want to be a long-term partner to Spain and are exploring different options to adapt our delivery business to the new regulation,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.

Some of the associations representing “independent couriers” wrote to the European Union’s Job Commissioner Nicolas Schmit calling for the Spanish law to be paused until the bloc has come up with a standardized framework.

Four of the associations said that a model that requires companies to give them contracts could lead to the loss of 23,000 of some 30,000 existing jobs.

But the general secretary of UGT, one of Spain’s main workers’ unions, said the riders protesting against the law were controlled by the platforms and that the law was meant to protect labor rights across the board.

With the law, Pepe Álvarez told public broadcaster TVE, “workers are going to win, the social security system is going to win and the country is going to win."

Díaz also dismissed the criticism: “Just as workers shouldn't fear advances in technology, companies shouldn't fear labor rights," the minister said when asked at a press briefing following the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Spain’s Supreme Court ruling last year said that there was a “presumed work relationship” between a delivery worker and Glovo. The ruling sent ripples across the industry, with the judges concluding that the platform couldn’t be deemed just as an intermediary.

Dani Gutiérrez, a 29-year-old member of the “Ridersxrights” association who has failed to receive work from food delivery platforms after striking and protesting against their labor conditions, welcomed the new law but said that it lacked ambition.

“It should have gone much further, beyond the riders, because the working class is being pushed to precarious conditions through this type of collaborative economy, with fake freelancers and so on," Gutiérrez said.

__

AP journalist Renata Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Aritz Parra And Renata Brito, The Associated Press

TODAY IN WEATHER HISTORY
How improper farming methodology and drought caused the catastrophic Dust Bowl

Randi Mann 

On Friday, May 11, 1934, tons of topsoil blew from the Great Plains region of the United States all the way to New York, Boston, and Atlanta.

This was an event associated with the Dust Bowl.

© Provided by The Weather Network"A farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936. Iconic photo taken by Arthur Rothstein." Courtesy of Wikipedia

The Dust Bowl was a series of severe dust storms during the 1930s. It was caused by the combination of drought and inaccurate farming methodology. Farmers deeply plowed the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains, which displaced the native grass that usually traps soil and moisture during droughts and heavy winds.

Farmers were able to widely convert arid grassland to cropland with new technologies like gasoline-powered tractors.

© Provided by The Weather Network"A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935." Courtesy of Wikipedia

During the 1930s drought, the plowed soil turned to dust. Winds blew that dust that created large blackout clouds. The dust clouds were nicknamed "black blizzards" and "black rollers."

The black blizzards travelled as far east as New York City. The dust plumes reduced visibility to one meter.

Edward Stanley, an editor for the Associated Press, was rewriting another reporter's coverage of the storm and coined the term "Dust Bowl".

© Provided by The Weather Network"Buried machinery in a barn lot; Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936." Courtesy of Wikipedia

The impacts of the catastrophic conditions were exasperated by the Great Depression. In 1935, the drought caused families to leave their farms and move to other areas to seek work. Areas in Texas, Oklahoma and other areas in the region were deserted because of the Dust Bowl conditions.

The dust storms left more than 500,000 Americans homeless. Some residents in the Great Plains areas died from dust pneumonia or malnutrition.

The Dust Bowl has been featured in cultural work such as the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck.

Thumbnail: "A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935." Courtesy of NOAA

Listen to The Weather Network's This Day in Weather History podcast on this topic, here.

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features stories about people, communities, and events and how weather impacted them.

Opposition right to be wary of Liberals withholding details about fired Canadian scientists with Wuhan links: expert

OTTAWA — Opposition parties are right to be suspicious of the Liberal government’s efforts to withhold details around the firing of two scientists from a high-security infectious disease lab earlier this year, according to one expert on Parliamentary accountability.

© Provided by National Post The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg where scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng worked until they were escorted out in July 2019, and finally fired in January 2021.

For months, the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada has resisted calls to provide information to a Parliamentary committee around why the two Canadian scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, were fired in January. The committee’s latest efforts on Monday to view documents related to the firings have also been resisted by the government, who says it would breach the Privacy Act and jeopardize national security.

Kathy Brock, professor at Queen’s University and an expert on issues of Parliamentary process and accountability, said the legal argument presented by the federal government could potentially be valid, but nonetheless appears to follow a trend of lacking transparency by the Trudeau government.

The Liberals, she said, have refused to release documents related to everything from the SNC-Lavalin scandal, to calls for a partial disclosure of contracts signed with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, citing cabinet confidences and the need to protect commercial sensitivity, respectively. Government has also redacted documents tied to the WE Charity scandal as well as recent calls for more details around the procurement practices of Shared Services Canada.

“Given the reluctance of the federal government to respond to a lot of fairly reasonable requests that have come up, and the way it’s controlled any communications and messaging on issues that are sensitive to the government, the opposition parties have a legitimate basis for being suspicious,” Brock said.

Her comments come as members of a special committee on Canada-China relations passed a motion on Monday evening that gives PHAC no more than 10 days to provide un-redacted documents around the firings, which would be passed along to the House of Commons law clerk. Members of the committee would review the documents privately to ensure against a leak of potentially sensitive information, the motion says.

The two scientists were escorted out of Canada’s only level-4 security lab in Winnipeg in July 2019, four months after the facility shipped Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. They were fired in January 2021, and were stripped of their security clearances by authorities.

Canadian officials have said the shipments are not related to the outbreak of COVID-19, which was first detected in Wuhan. The federal health agency said the shipments and Qiu’s firing are also not connected.

Opposition members and even some Liberals, have say PHAC should nonetheless provide documentation on the matter, saying it could be of extremely high public interest.

Still, at least part of the Liberal government’s aversion to provide documents might be a result of the increasingly partisan nature of discourse in the House of Commons, Brock said, which has intensified during the pandemic.

“Because of the ramped up partisan nature of discussions between the opposition parties and the government, and the fact that we’re approaching election, partisanship has emerged much more strongly,” she said. “That means that some of the compromises that you traditionally have are broken down.”

Opposition requests for documents, she said, have also been very broad in nature, and could weigh down the public service as it seeks to locate the relevant records. Several observers have said that requests made by the Canada-China committee are very similar to when Liberal opposition members called for documents in 2010 related to the abusive treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian armed forces. The former Harper government had resisted efforts to have those documents provided to Parliament.

Members of the committee have been full throated in their calls for the release of documents, saying it is a matter of Parliamentary privilege.

Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Affairs minister, had said the documents should be provided to the committee on a private basis. Oliphant Monday evening questioned the legal opinion provided by Christian Roy, senior legal counsel within the Justice Department, who said committees have never had the right to compel documents that could violate the Privacy Act.

“Lawyers are not always right and Justice lawyers are particularly, in my mind, not always right,” he said.

One former senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, agreed with Oliphant, saying Parliamentary privilege often takes precedence over specific legal statutes.

Other observers sided with the Liberals. Michael Wernick, former Clerk of the Privy Council, said the committee’s latest demands for documents could set a “really dangerous” precedent, potentially allowing opposition parties to expose sensitive information.

“Imagine the scope for a partisan majority harassing political opponents and dissenting stakeholders, demanding journalist sources, medical records, psychiatrists’ records, tax filings, adoption records, sealed court records, cabinet papers of their predecessors,” Wernick wrote on LinkedIn on Tuesday.

Conservative members of Parliament have been particularly critical of the Liberal government’s proclivity to redact or withhold documents.

On Tuesday, the party released a statement criticizing a lack of transparency about $655 million in funding that it said was awarded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank to ITC Holdings, a subsidiary of Fortis. Conservative members on the House transport committee put forward a motion on Tuesday calling for more details to be provided around the deal, which it said Liberal members blocked.

“These stalling tactics and the blocking of important reports raise serious questions about what the Liberals are working so hard to keep hidden.”

THIS SAME LAB HAD AN EARLIER INCIDENT OF A CHINESE HONEY POT TRAP OF A CANADIAN SCIENTIST AND HIS CHINESE ASSISTANT AND HER THEFT OF ANTHRAX FROM THE LAB

Public health agency ordered to hand over documents on two scientists fired from microbiology lab

In mystery investigation of two Canadian scientists, a request for Ebola, henipavirus from the Wuhan lab

Bio-warfare experts question why Canada was sending lethal viruses to China

Canada's oceans on the crest of a transformative decade

Canada is in the enviable position of having the longest coastline in the world.

But our trio of oceans is being battered by a storm of negative impacts, be it overexploited fish stocks, plastics pollution, degrading marine food webs, increasingly fragile coastal ecosystems or biodiversity loss accelerated by ocean warming and acidification.

Yet, at the very crest of their vulnerability, Canada’s oceans may stand to benefit from a potentially transformative decade.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is partnering in the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science spanning from 2021 to 2030.

Touted as a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity, the Ocean Decade’s goal is to lay a new foundation in the sustainable management and development of the globe’s oceans and coastlines for the benefit of humanity.

Yet, while three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity to meet necessities, ocean science accounts for only between 0.04 and four per cent of the total research and development expenditures worldwide.

The maxim of the ambitious undertaking to rectify that deficit is “the science we need for the oceans we want.”

The problems facing the oceans are global, as are potential solutions, said federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan in a recent statement launching Canada’s participation in the international initiative.

“Working together we will improve our understanding of ocean conditions, better understand and predict consequences of ocean changes and better inform the ways we can lessen these impacts,” Jordan said.

“It will shine a spotlight on the importance of ocean science and sectors, and how our global ocean nations can work together to grow a stronger, more sustainable, global blue economy.”

The marine research community, as well as First Nations, citizen scientists, environmental and conservation organizations, and economic stakeholders are rolling up their sleeves this week to take a first crack at developing an initial blueprint of scientific priorities and contributions Canada’s ocean community could make towards the international initiative at an open, two-day workshop hosted by the Hakai Institute on Quadra Island starting Wednesday.

One of the engaging aspects about the Ocean Decade is key scientific goals and specific outcomes — whether at the federal, regional or local level — will be the result of grassroots input, said Eric Peterson, co-founder of the Hakai Institute, which specializes in research along B.C.’s remote Pacific coast.

“The Ocean Decade is going to be a collaborative exercise in which lots of people are involved, so it isn't all top-down coming from the UN,” Peterson said.

Beyond natural science, the Ocean Decade workshops will also factor in Indigenous knowledge, local and experiential learning, policy and technological expertise, the humanities and citizen science, he said.

“I'm very excited by it,” Peterson said.

“Anybody can contribute. What we’re trying to do via the workshop is to get everybody excited, too... and turn it into a significant movement where we can get quite a lot done in ocean science over the next decade.”

The West Coast, for example, has a burgeoning, committed citizen science community that can play a big role in the Ocean Decade, he added.

Already well-informed about coastal issues, citizen scientists would be an effective group to help define and achieve project goals, he said.

“If you put them on task to help you with monitoring, they understand what’s going on and take it very seriously,” Peterson said.

Some chief outcomes Canada has broadly outlined for the project are healthy, resilient, clean and productive oceans that inspire and engage citizens.

The goal of the immediate workshop is to try and reach general agreement on some defined priorities for the Ocean Decade at a federal level, he added. The next logical steps in the future will likely be to establish objectives regionally and locally.

For example, the issue of microplastics in the marine environment and how to clean them up and to reduce pollution sources is very likely to find its way onto the virtual whiteboard, Peterson said.

Other objectives might be data or scientific gaps that impact the sustainability of oceans nationally or globally, he added.

The goal isn’t to replicate but, rather, tap into the work and experience of individuals and groups already involved in the ocean community, Peterson said.

“The main principle that underlies the ocean decade, if you read the literature, is to collaborate, collaborate, collaborate,” he said.

“We’ll be recruiting projects and organizations that are already working hard in these areas.”

Peterson concedes that getting so many stakeholders to prioritize, mobilize and commit to the mobilization and solving the number of problems plaguing the world’s oceans is a big undertaking.

“I think it is going to be a very difficult decade,” he said.

“But we can be concerned without getting terrified, and we can worry without being immobilized.”

Oceans are worth preserving, and humans are capable of great progress when they engage in widespread, collaborative approaches to problem-solving, he added.

“It’s amazing to see how much could be done a hurry if it needs to,” Peterson said.

“Look how quickly we developed (COVID-19) vaccines, and that was seen as impossible.”

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer

Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

CANADA

Health care providers, advocates cry foul over stalled action on pharmacare


OTTAWA — Doctors and nurses on the front lines of Canada's health system are sounding the alarm after the Liberal government appears to have put its promise of a national pharmacare program on the back burner.

When the Trudeau government delivered its first federal budget in two years last month, it included more than $100 billion in new spending over the three years.

But while there was one brief mention of pharmacare in the 739-page document, it only re-stated a commitment from the 2019 budget of $500 million for a national program for high-cost drugs for rare diseases.

Dr. Melanie Bechard, a pediatric emergency room physician and chair of Doctors for Medicare, says she was disappointed at the lack of new funding for pharmacare in the budget. She believes it’s an indication the government is not making it a priority.

"I was very disappointed because the government has promised national pharmacare. They've conducted a study that really outlined the path to get there," she said.

Even the Budget 2021 document itself acknowledges that "the case for universal pharmacare is well-established," Bechard noted.

"The budget acknowledges that it makes sense. It's good public policy. But unfortunately, we're just getting words instead of any funding towards it, so that's completely ineffectual."

The Liberals campaigned on a promise to "take the critical next steps to implement national universal pharmacare" in their 2019 election platform, and similar commitments have since appeared in throne speeches and mandate letters to the federal health minister.

In 2019, an expert panel appointed by the Liberals recommended a universal, single-payer public pharmacare system should be created in Canada to replace the current patchwork of prescription drug plans. This panel, which was led by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins, reported that such a plan would result in savings of an estimated $5 billion annually.

Canadians spent $34 billion on prescription medicines in 2018, the panel report said, adding drugs are the second-biggest expenditure in health care after hospitals.

Bechard says emergency room doctors and primary care physicians see patients every day whose health conditions have worsened from trying to ration medications they can't afford.

"I have seen instances where kids have come into the emergency department having asthma attacks, and the parents show me inhalers and they're nearly empty. And when I say, 'We need to refill this so that we can avoid situations like this,' the parents say, 'Well, these are expensive to refill, Dr. Melanie, we can't always afford to get a new one every couple of months.'

"And it's sad because arguably the child did not need to come into the emergency department if they had sufficient medication at home."

While she also expressed disappointment at not seeing new spending for pharmacare in the budget, Sharon Batt, adjunct professor of bioethics and political science at Dalhousie University and a health policy expert, said she was not surprised.

"It does seem like it's taken a back burner," she said.

"Certainly there's a huge resistance to this plan... on the part of the pharmaceutical industry, some of the patient groups and some researchers, and I think that is definitely playing out within the government's priorities and making it harder for them to move forward with pharmacare."

Some provinces and territories have also been lukewarm toward the idea of pharmacare, pushing instead for increases to federal health transfers.

Batt attributes this resistance to the reason Ottawa is instead focusing its efforts on creating a program to fund medications for rare diseases, which has more political buy-in.

"I think they're just kind of kicking the can down the road and hoping that the industry will back off or that there will be more public pressure against the industry," Batt said of the federal government.

"I think they don't know what to do. I think they probably would like to bring a plan in, but they want to have the public support. And that would include patient support."

Earlier this year, the NDP tabled a private member's bill to establish the legal framework for a national pharmacare plan, but it was defeated at second reading by a vote of 295-32. Only two Liberal MPs supported the bill.

NDP health critic Don Davies said he worries Canadians are increasingly becoming cynical about politicians who promise things, such as pharmacare, during elections and then don't follow through.

"They continue to tell Canadians that they believe in pharmacare, yet opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to act on that promise passes."

Health Minister Patty Hajdu was not available for an interview, but her spokesman, Cole Davidson, pointed to the paragraph in Budget 2021 that commits to work with provinces and stakeholders to "build on the foundational elements that are already in progress, like the national strategy on high-cost drugs for rare diseases, toward the goal of a universal national program."

He also noted Ottawa has established a "transition office to create a new Canada Drug Agency and a national formulary" and officials are currently working with provinces and experts to create a drug plan for Canadians with rare diseases, with a target launch date of 2022-23.

"No Canadian should have to choose between paying for prescriptions and putting food on the table," Davidson said in a statement.

"We're committed to working collaboratively with willing jurisdictions to develop a national, universal pharmacare program, and that important work continues."

Linda Silas, who presides over the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, said nurses across Canada were sure that pharmacare was a "done deal" after the last election.

The budget's lack of focus on making it a reality is concerning, she said.

"You'd think, because we're in the middle of a health crisis, they would have put a big focus on a health crisis that already exists. One in four families do not have prescription drug coverage, that's a crisis for those families."

However, Silas said she wasn't entirely surprised not to see new money in the budget for pharmacare. In the lead-up to its release, she said her organization was consulted numerous times by Liberal cabinet ministers and officials asking for input on what should be in the budget.

When she told them pharmacare was at the top of the list, she said there was a notable change in tone.

"The messages we were hearing was, 'Well, Linda, is there something else (other) than pharmacare?...You know, Linda, our priorities are pharmacare. But if pharmacare is not there, what else should be in there?' " she said, recalling the conversations.

Speaking ahead of her shift at the children's hospital in Ottawa, Bechard said she doesn't understand how pharmacare has seemingly fallen off the radar when she believes the case for bringing in a national medicare plan is "even more dire" due to COVID-19.

"The pandemic has brought with it massive amounts of job losses and unemployment, and in our current system people rely on employment to get coverage for medications," she said.

"Arguably now, more than ever, we need to have national, universal pharmacare to make sure that people can actually access the meds they need to stay healthy."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.

Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press

Ex-UAW president sentenced to 21 months in prison in union corruption scheme
Michael Wayland


Former UAW President Dennis Williams was sentenced Tuesday to 21 months in prison for his involvement in embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in union funds.

Williams is the highest-ranking union official to be sentenced as part of a multiyear corruption probe into the prominent American labor union.

He is one of 15 people to have been charged as part of the investigation, including three Fiat Chrysler executives and his successor, who is awaiting sentencing.

© Provided by CNBC United Auto Workers union president Dennis Williams raises his arm in solidarity after his farewell speech during the 37th Constitutional Convention in Detroit, Michigan, June 13, 2018.

DETROIT — A former president of the United Auto Workers who took part in a scheme along with other union officials in which they embezzled at least $1.5 million in member funds for lavish trips, golfing, alcohol and other luxuries was sentenced Tuesday to 21 months in prison.

Dennis Williams is the highest-ranking union official to be sentenced as part of a multiyear corruption probe into the prominent American labor union. He is one of 15 people to have been charged, including three Fiat Chrysler executives and his successor, who is awaiting sentencing.

Williams on Tuesday choked up as he addressed the court during the virtual hearing. He apologized to his family as well as the UAW's members for his actions.

"I've thought long and hard about how my actions and the actions of others hurt the union that I love," Williams said. "I am more than the actions that have brought me here before you in this case."

Williams pleaded guilty in September to conspiring with other union officials to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars, as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Under terms of the agreement, his sentence would be between 18 and 24 months.

Williams was also instructed to pay $147,976 in restitution, including $132,517 to the UAW and $15,459 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Federal prosecutors had recommended the maximum sentencing guidelines for Williams, who led the union from 2014 to 2018. In court documents, they described Williams as being intricately involved with the illegal activities and living a "double life."

"Dennis Williams tried to live two lives. On the one hand, at public events, he excoriated the things that were 'wrong in the United States of America' because union members 'cannot buy the things they build,'" assistant U.S. attorneys wrote last week in a sentencing memo. "But in private, he exploited the hundreds of thousands of UAW members that he led."

© Provided by CNBC President Donald Trump talks with auto industry leaders, including General Motors CEO Mary Barra (L) and United Auto Workers (UAW) President Dennis Williams (R) at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, U.S. March 15, 2017.

In a separate memo, Williams' lawyers argued he should not spend more than one year and a day in federal prison. They touted him as a "devoted family man" and Marine veteran who made "mistakes."

"Mr. Williams' life — until his conviction — was a great American success story," they wrote. The lawyers blamed his successor, Gary Jones, a regional director under Williams, for much of the maleficence. Williams and his lawyer on Tuesday continued to blame Jones, portraying Williams as an unwitting beneficiary of the illegal activities.

"In my gut I knew better, and I failed to stop it," he said. "I lost my perspective of who I was and what I was about. I'll always regret it."

Family members as well as others, including actor Danny Glover, submitted letters to the court in support of Williams. Glover, in a letter, said he "worked closely" with Williams for six years when the UAW was attempting to organize workers at Nissan Motor in Mississippi.

Prison sentences for those charged as part of the federal probe have ranged from 60 days to five and a half years. Ex-Fiat Chrysler executive Alphons Iacobelli, who led the company's labor relations, received the lengthiest sentence; however, it was recently reduced to four years.

In December, the UAW and federal prosecutors agreed to end the corruption probe into the union under a civil settlement that included an independent monitor overseeing the organization for six years.

Other requirements under the deal include the union conducting a memberwide vote to potentially reform its voting process and making certain repayments, including a $1.5 million payment to the IRS. The UAW has already paid back about $15 million to training centers for improper chargebacks uncovered by officials.

A federal criminal investigation into individuals regarding the probe is ongoing, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.

The UAW, in a statement Tuesday, said Williams has "rightfully been sentenced today for his crimes that put his personal and self-interest above that of our members."

Labor organizers rally for Great Lakes pipeline

Duration: 00:38

Labor organizers spread 1,200 hard hats across the grounds of the Michigan Capitol, saying they represented jobs that would be lost without the Line 5 oil pipeline (May 11)

Windsor Assembly Plant workers 'concerned' as shutdown extensions continue
Duration: 01:12


Patricia Burford and Nick Dimitriou say their 'heart goes out' to junior staff members and those work at supplier factories since they're not entitled to the same benefits that they'll be getting over the course of this ongoing shutdown.